I altered the title of this post because I decided to alter the list item a bit.
In my head, I had to touch both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans within a 24-hour period. However, I wrote it "on the same day." Then, the original plan would have satisfied both qualifications. Then Southwest Airlines screwed that up.
When I planned my trip to Boston, my current list champion Angela Mioglionico made a list of probably 20 things we could cross off my list. However, my lacksidasical San Diego attitude and first-night-back-in-Boston-induced hangover made executing them all impossible. This item, however, was a now-or-never sort of thing as I was on the east coast and currently live on the west coast but may move before I make it back to the east coast again.
Angela originally planned to somehow dip me in the Boston Harbor like I was some sort of olden times tea. 1) For some reason I don't count the Boston Harbor as the Atlantic Ocean -- though I would have counted it as swimming in a new body of water if I had somehow gone swimming in the harbor. 2) I still don't quite understand how she was going to get me close enough to the surface to touch it. Like, was she going to dangle me from a pier? I don't get it.
Instead, she took me to Nahant, which I now know is an island and is also the location of some of the filming of Shutter Island. My first thought was, "Dang, this is going to be cold." My second thought was, "DANG, look at all those kite surfers! They must be cold." Not surprisingly, the water was cold. Surprisingly, the sand was really soft and there were seashells everywhere. It made me want to research why there are so many seashells in some areas (like Nahant) and not others (like San Diego beaches). As we were leaving, a surfer arrived, dressed in a full, hooded wetsuit. You go, Boston surfer.
Coincidentally, as I was about to enter the water in Nahant, Tara Edberg texted me confirming she could pick me up from the airport in San Diego. She told me we could stop by the Harbor on the way home. So I had to tell her that, unfortunately, the Harbor didn't count. She texted back that I'd probably be touching the Boston Harbor as the Atlantic. Sorry, friends. Harbors are not oceans.
As we left Nahant, I got a text from Southwest Airlines saying my flight was delayed 2.75 hours. I checked my connection, and there was no way I was going to make that. So Angela tagged along with me as I called Southwest. The woman I spoke to said there was no way I was getting to San Diego that night and then kept listing the options for me to get to Baltimore so I could fly out from there in the morning. I still can't figure out why she wanted me to spend the night in Baltimore so badly. Baltimore is not on the way to San Diego. Instead, we went to the airport and after a very long wait, I was scheduled for a 5:40am flight the next day, landing me in San Diego at 11:05am. That left me 1 hour and 10 minutes to get to the ocean to keep it inside my 24 hour window. Any delays was going to kill that list item.
By the way, this was one of my very, very few bad experiences with Southwest. They did give me a voucher for the inconvenience, but it's only enough for a one-way flight, so I feel like they're just guarenteeing I'll buy another flight in a year. Then, because they changed my flight, I lost my boarding position, and for my Chicago to San Diego leg, I had C57. If you have ever flown Southwest, you know that means I would be in the least desirable middle seat on the plane. They wouldn't upgrade me even though they had upgrades available nor would they let me use my voucher to pay for it. I just sucked it up and paid the $40 because I was just too exhausted to bear a 4+ hour middle seat ride after getting up at 4am. That delay cost me around $70 I would not have otherwise spent. I did write them a message, and I hope they get back to me with some sort of consilation.
My flight landed 5 minutes early. Tara swooped me up, and we went off to Ocean Beach on a time crunch. I ran into the ocean. She took my picture. We parted ways for the day.Thank you to Angela and Tara for your help in fitting this in!
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