A walk on the beach

It was a long journey (starting with a school bus ride at 3:30 in the morning after a day of unprecedented power outages in the Brazos Valley and little sleep), but we finally made it to San Diego. I'm here as part of a group of female students from Texas A&M (a.k.a. AWICS) to attend the 2006 Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing. It's a conference held every two years to promote women in the computing fields.

After we checked into our hotel and got some lunch (I had fish tacos --- you can't go to San Diego and not eat fish tacos), some of us thought that what we really needed more than anything else was a nice, relaxing walk on the beach. Happy to not be in-charge in any way, shape, or form, I let one of the other girls navigate us through the public trains and busses to Mission Beach. It's nice to be a follower sometimes.

We got to the beach and it was gorgeous! Just look at this view!

Some of us (me included) had to throw off our shoes, roll up our pants, and in a moment of weakness went running into the water. It was just a little bit chilly, okay it was pretty cold. bit it was fun. Just like kids, we went hunting for sea shells and sand dollars. I have never found a whole sand dollar, and I'm on a mission to find one someday.

This is as wet as we got!	Looks like we are discussing something important... (probably not)

After a little too much sun and a lot of walking in the sand, we stopped at a little ice cream stand. Just like an oasis in the middle of a desert, it was perfect! Here we are dusting off or feet and donning our shoes again.
After the beach walk, I was perfectly content. After getting through all the school work from last month (see my previous blog entry), this was just what I needed. That afternoon I went back to my hotel room and slept like a rock. Life is good.