Touring....

While I was in San Diego for my class reunion, I had a "union" as well.
I got to meet Susan, my second cousin, once removed, who lives on the east coast.
A while ago she was snooping around on line attempting to find out what happened to the brother of her grandfather.
Turns out that brother was my great grand father, Cornelius Brosnan, the inventor of the paper clip.
A google search led her to my blog post about him; and she soon discovered we were kindred spirits.
We have so many things in common...so she left a comment so I could contact her.
We have been exchanging emails for about a year now.
I think God did a sneaky by arranging for her to come to San Diego for a professional conference the same week I was to be in San Diego for my class reunion!
So we finally met in person.
If you have never met in person before...meeting for the first time wouldn't be called a reunion, right?
Union sounds not quite right...maybe we need to figure out what to call a person that one has gotten to know on line and finally meet in person?
Anyhoo...
We worked out a day together so I could show her around my home town.

Of course we HAD to go to Balboa Park. 

(Anyone who visits San Diego and doesn't go to Balboa Park has really missed seeing the crown jewel of San Diego.)

It was uncharacteristically warm, but we walked the park from end to end chatting away happily.
I only took a few pictures of plants that I thought were kind of interesting.

 

 

 

 

 

The water lily pond was a stop for photo op.

Beautiful.
(Disturbingly, four days the water feature was seriously damaged by a "rave" of people who swarmed the area for a water cannon fight at midnight.  The plants, the koi and the fill/drain system were destroyed by the crowd of hooligans. So sickening to think that such a gentle beauty could be trashed without a second thought. )

From Balboa Park we crossed over to Coronado Island to walk around the Hotel Del Coronado. 

Then we went to the San Diego Mission  aka the birth place of San Diego.
The mission was begun 1769.
I have always had a hard time wrapping my brain around the idea that this mission was a quiet key event on the west coast during the same time as all the Revolutionary War events were happening on the East coast.
My cousin Susan works as an archivist for an organization within the Catholic church.
She has charge of artifacts of the Roman Catholic church; I was eager to visit this bit of Catholic history with her.
(A side note to fellow cat lovers: She has a cat who gets to stay with her monk friend while she is out of town.  I seriously wish we could have gotten a San Diego Padre bobble head for her to give to her friend...and we got a bit of a chuckle that we were on Friar Road at one point of our touring.) 

From there we drove to La Jolla to see the Mt. Soledad Veterans Memorial, and so she could meet my dad.
Her dad and my dad's mom were first cousins...it is unknown if they ever met during their lives.
Seems a pity to think that they didn't.
From there we went out to Old Town for a Mexican dinner where we continued to talk and talk...ten hours of catching up was only enough to scratch the surface of our lives and served to confirm that it is a real pity that we live too far apart for regular get togethers.
Hopefully one day I will get to see her in her home town where my great great grandparents raised a family in the mid 1800's and where her branch of the family has continued to live until this very day.
Sue was reluctant to have me photograph her so I am not sharing pictures of her in this post.
Interesting to me: She looks quite a bit like my dad's twin sisters.
Sue...I will have to dig out a picture of them and send it to you.
So instead of posting a picture, just picture in your mind a lively, delightful, interesting Godly woman and I think you will have a snapshot of her that works!