The Sun Is Always Warmer When You Can Feel It - Pt. 2

"You could go to Dreamland.

You just caught the ferry at 23rd Street or slogged your way through the slow crawl of horse carts and motor cars, heading south on Shell road in the golden light of the late June afternoon, down to the edge of the Atlantic where a white city rose up above the brick and ash of Brooklyn.

You could walk through the fake marble gates as the sun went down, and the sea flashed amber and then grey, as Statton Island disappeared into the shadows, and the light grew dim enough for you to fool yourself that the marble wasn't fake at all. 

Then the bulbs blinked on—a million of them—lighting up the night in the largest amusement park in the world. 

Which was something spectacular to see, just a few years after you'd seen your first electric light at all. 

Especially after you'd spent a 12-hour day in some basement room or some windowless factory floor, stitching sleeves or packing boxes, fitting fingers to gloves by gaslight. 

It would be something to see even now. 

To see dozens of white buildings made to look like French pavilions, Roman forum, and Florentine towers.

Where people danced at history's largest ballroom, and where you could drink tea at a Japanese garden. 

Where you could sit in an auditorium in bleachers, surrounding a vast pool of saltwater, and watch submarines fight a fake battle beneath a scale model of San Fransisco. 

You could buy your ticket to Dreamland and take a gondola ride through the canals of Venice, past St. Mark's Square and the Doge's Palace. 

You could ride your first escalator. 

You could take a miniature train ride through a fake Switzerland and another from New York to California, or walk the streets of Kyro. Or Paris. And other places you were never, ever going to go otherwise.

Or you could sit on a swing with your friends inside a tiny house, and then feel the swing move and feel yourself flip end over end, only to figure out later on, when you're sitting out under the string lights and salt air, that you hadn't moved at all. 
That it was the tiny house that had flipped end over end around you. 

You could see a cast of 2,000 people set fire to a 6-story hotel, and watch firefighters put it out, scaling ladders to rescue actors from real danger and catch them in nets as they made panicked leaps from 4th story windows. So they could do it again tomorrow night. And the next night. And the next. 

You could fly over all of it in a hot air balloon. 

You could sink below it in a diving bell. 

You could watch a magician make a woman float right over your head. 

You could eat a new invention, a hotdog, while you watched a chariot race.

You could climb into a boat ride called the "Gates of Hell."

Until one night. 

One of those million light bulbs blew and sent a spark that flitted on to paper mache, throwing all of Dreamland up in flames. 

Two thousand firefighters—all of them pretend—couldn't put Dreamland back together again."


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More than just an introduction to a place you've never heard about and will never see, my point for the story is just that. 

You will never see Dreamland. It was destroyed in 1911. 
So by the time you came, it was gone. 

As spectacular as Dreamland was—and it was awe-inspiring—it doesn't touch you now. 
It can't impress you now unless your emotions are slightly swayed by reading accounts of its splendour. Still, at its best, it will never intensify itself to the level of being a reality to a generation that came too late to put out the fire. 


But as I walked past a similarly grand structure that was built 16 years earlier than Dreamland, the truism of "You never know what you have until it's gone," made a grab for my attention. 

And I knew it was true.

Something simply being there, merely existing, seems to be a reason for us to file it away with the mundane and usual.

 It is only when a river dries to a trickle, that we begin to see how important it was. 

Or fantastic. 

Or impressive. 


So this is my ode to a place I haven't given much more than a single thought to my entire life. 

A place that is still standing, still there to be appreciated, always available to inspire wonder. 

Hotel Del Coronado, welcome to the spotlight. 

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In November 1885, five investors went together to buy all of Coronado and North Island, approximately 4,000 acres, for $110,000.
The Coronado Beach Company was born. 

One of the founders, namely Babcock, had a grand vision for the hotel.

"It would be built around a court...a garden of tropical trees, shrubs, and flowers. 

From the south end, the foyer should open to Glorietta Bay with verandas for rest and promenade. On the ocean corner, there should be a pavilion tower, and northward along the ocean, a colonnade, terraced in grass to the beach. 

The dining wing should project at an angle from the southeast corner of the court and be almost detached, to give full value to the view of the ocean, bay, and city."

A Decided Place

James W. Reid was the architect hired to make a dream come true. 

Construction of the hotel began in March 1887, "on a sandspit populated by jackrabbits and coyotes."

Groundbreaking Ceremony

Reid's plans were being revised and added to regularly. 

To deal with fire hazards, a freshwater pipeline was run under San Diego Bay. Water tanks and gravity flow sprinklers were installed, along with the world's first oil furnace in a hotel.

Electric lighting in a hotel was also a world first. The electrical wires were installed inside the gas lines, so if the "new-fangled" electricity didn't work, they could always pipe gas in to illuminate the rooms.

Hotel Construction

When the 399-room hotel opened for business in February 1888,  

reports of the new grand hotel were wired across the country.

Just as the hotel was nearing completion, the Southern California land boom collapsed. The project needed additional funds at a time when many people were deserting San Diego. Babcock turned to Captain Charles Hinde and sugar magnate John D. Spreckels, who lent them $100,000 to finish the hotel. 

The Coronado Beach Company was then capitalized with three million United States dollars. By 1890 Spreckels bought out both Babcock and Story. The Spreckels family retained ownership of the hotel until 1948.

The Del Debuts

First Wedding

President William Taft At The Del

Barney Goodman purchased the hotel from the Spreckels in 1948.

From the end of World War II until 1960, the hotel began to age. While still outwardly beautiful, neglect was evident. In 1960, local millionaire John Alessio purchased the hotel and spent $2 million on refurbishment and redecorating.

Alessio sold the hotel to M. Larry Lawrence in 1963. Lawrence's initial plan was to develop the land around the hotel and ultimately, to demolish it.

Lawrence later changed his mind. During his tenure, Lawrence invested $150 million in refurbishing and expanding much of the hotel. He doubled its capacity to 700 rooms. He added the Grande Hall Convention Center and two seven-story Ocean Towers just south of the hotel.

The Lawrence family sold the hotel to the Travelers Group after Lawrence's death in 1996. The Travelers Group completed a $55 million upgrade of the hotel in 2001, which included seismic retrofitting. 

The hotel's many notable guest list includes Thomas Edison, William McKinley, Woodrow Wilson, Charlie Chaplin, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, King Kalakaua of Hawaii, and Babe Ruth.

Hotel Del Coronado.

 One of the few surviving examples of an American architectural genre; the wooden Victorian beach resort. 

It is the second largest wooden structure in the United States (after the Tillamook Air Museum in Oregon) and was designated a National Historical Landmark in 1977. 

And you can still go see it, revelling in the fact that you won't have to wait until it's gone to appreciate it.  

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The Sun Is Always Warmer When You Can Feel It - Pt. 1

It woke me up.


Sunlight.

Sunlight. In my eyes.

There was sunlight in my eyes.



Sunlight shouldn't alarm you, casual reader, but it made me a little uneasy.

Because the way my bed is situated, it is physically impossible for sunlight to stream into my eyes unless the house behind mine had gotten blown off the map.


Dreading the news of the Russian invasion of my hometown, I reluctantly opened both of my eyes, and as they landed on the strange shapes around the room, fear filled my gut, and my eyes grew wide.


The reason sunlight was able to enter my eye stream was because I wasn't in my bed. I wasn't even in my room.

I was warm, and I could hear airplanes taking off.

My eyes swept about the place, noting the baby crib in the corner, the plump, flower designed pillows and the door leading into yet another room I did not recognize.


I wondered if I had entered into one of those black holes my older brother had late night discussions with me about, and I had somehow been shifted to another time and place, of which I had not been previously acquainted with and had no idea how to get out.

My attention was drawn to my nightstand where a Southwest napkin lay just next to my water bottle.

Ahha. A clue. I'm ready for this.





There were many things I gleaned from this scene, but to stay humble, I will reveal just one clue.

Gathering and processing the presented geographical information, I knew that I had to be in one of the listed galaxies.

My fate lay in either Mxcioe, Cbua, Lavlarta, or Ocxime.

That is Transfarency.

The last location I was pretty sure I had read about in college research. It was in the province of Melgard, under the control of the trolls from the Kingdom of Exedor.


I pushed myself up and out of bed and started taking inventory of the house I was in.


Off to my left sat another bed, identical to mine.

My room had two sets of doors, the double ones spilling out into the medium, yet adequately furnished living room.

Looking down, I noticed an odd contraption inside of the heater vent.

True detectives notice these kinds of things. It's ok, you'll catch on.


Then, off of the living room was the dining room and the adjoining hallway.

It was an older, but well taken care of facility.

Looking out the kitchen window, I spied the author of the earlier heard airplane sounds.

It was kind of warm and sunny, and they had palm trees.

I had to be in California.


Heading to the kitchen to find something to eat, I set my phone down on the counter and a blip on my screen caught my attention.

My expired boarding pass from Southwest Airlines.

This was it.

I swiped right, and there it was.


Flight 5854, nonstop from Portland.


It started to come back.

The treachery, the journey, and one family's quest for vitamin D.

And the friends to make it all a dream worth attaining.


This was San Diego 2.0.

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Our AirBnB, as you can see, had a beautiful view. Nestled in the hills around Old Town San Diego, it was the perfect location for a home base, halfway between here and not far from there.

Caleb and I had flown in the night before, and not surprisingly had our flight delayed coming out of Portland.

This meant that when I landed, I had 20 minutes to grab my car rental before Enterprise closed.

Thankfully, due to the quick thinking of my two sidekicks for the weekend, Tiera and Angela were able to wait for Caleb to grab our luggage, and take him to our house, so that I could quickly catch the car rental bus, and make it with minutes to spare.


Not a bad ride. EXCEPT.

The button to move into parking was right atop the shifter. And I like to rest my hand there.

So consequentially, randomly throughout the weekend, I would be at a stoplight, the light would turn green, and I would hit the gas.

But not go anywhere.

Hit the brake, push the side button, pull back into drive.

I finally got the hang of it.

(Not the hang of not shifting into park, but the hang of quickly moving out of park while cars honked at me.)


Friday morning met us with its own set of challenges, but my crew was ready for them.


We began our Friday morning by heading out to Temecula to visit a Grandma in need of some confusion that only young people can stir up.

I did knock a pullout drawer out of alignment, BUT WE MADE COOKIES OK. 

Angela has a dastardly optimum talent for getting photos at precisely the wrong time. 

Or the right time. It depends on the situation. 

If you're going to jump through the back window of a moving car....you're going to have to do it quick, or she'll have proof.   

We had a great time discussing things with Grandma, dropping chocolate chips and learning more about the mystification we label "women."

Grandma: "Don't ever underestimate a woman." 

Jacob: "Never again."

*****Historical Marker Ahead*****

I don't remember how she brought it up, but somehow during the conversation that day, Tiera casually brought up the fact that her Great-Great-Uncle was Frank Livingston, and until his recent death, was the oldest living WW2 Veteran. 

I casually said, "WAT."

Let me introduce you to Mr Livingston. 

Frank was born on November 13, 1905. 

The same year that the first Hemi engine was outfitted on an automobile. 

One of 7 children, he lived in Cotton Valley, Louisiana.

Of African-American Heritage, Livingston enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1942, serving as a private during the Allied invasion of Italy (Sept. '43 to Jan. '44).

After the war ended, he became a union cement finishing worker, and never married.

On August 16th, 2015 he became the oldest recognized military veteran in the US, following the death of Emma Didlake. 

Not content with being the oldest veteran, Livingston became the oldest living American man in 2016, following the death of Felix Simoneaux. 

Livingston, who could stand on his head until he was 92, died in Shreveport, Louisiana in May 2016, at the age of 110.

Wish I could've met you, brother. 

But don't worry. 

We treated your niece and great-great-niece to a tostada salad at El Pollo Loco. 

Cause you can't go to Coronado Beach on an empty stomach. 

In fact, I personally wouldn't go anywhere on an empty stomach. Too much of a risk.