Thursday was Chuck’s 60th birthday, and we started celebrating in style on Wednesday night. The true celebration, in my opinion, started on Sunday when we finished all 26.2 miles of the LA Marathon pretty much on a lark. As I pointed out, it’s the rare darned-near-60-year-old who can even think about completing a marathon, much less do it with no advanced planning!

ANYway, we went to track as usual on Wednesday, and then went to dinner with a whole bunch of folks at Green Street Restaurant. Much fun was had, and Chuck got to have some wine as our friend Skip came and agreed to drive us home (thanks!). Chuck received several cards, a lovely bottle of French wine, and an already opened bottle of tequila.

Thursday marked the big day, and I had gone to great lengths to keep the plans for the day (and night) under wraps, using my cell phone to make all reservations and not using our home address for any mailings. The plans: travel down to Carlsbad and take a sunset ride in a circa 1927 biplane along the coast of northern San Diego County, then go to the Four Seasons Aviara for dinner and spend the night in their presidential suite. Chuck was very surprised, especially when I went the wrong way and ended up in an industrial park rather than the airport. Once I corrected that error, he was very excited, and we checked in for the flight with lots of time to spare, so we headed off to the Four Seasons to check in. People at the hotel were phenomenally nice to us (they knew it was Chuck’s birthday) and we headed off to our room. Let me just say, I knew the room was going to be nice, but I had NO IDEA just how HUGE it was going to be. I had booked the presidential suite as it sounded like it had a good view, and it came with breakfast. But OH MY GOD this was no mere room, it was a decent sized house for a family of six! The suite was (we estimate) 2800 square feet – larger than our entire two-story house. We spent part of the half hour wew had to spare walking down the REALLY long hallway to the suite, then we spent the rest of the time going ooh! and aah! at all of the amazing features of the suite (a kitchen! a living room! two plasma TVs! two bathrooms!). Then it was back to the airport for the biplane ride.

We had a grand flight, enjoying the (roaring) wind in our faces and the amazing feeling of flying in an open cockpit. The flight was more inland than along the coast as fog rolled in and obscured the view of the coast. It was such a visceral flight experience, and the views were breathtaking. Our pilot was a great guy, former RAF flier with the British accent and all. We took tons of photos, and even some video.

Then it was back to the Four Seasons for an awesome dinner, some wonderful wine, and a delicious dessert. After dinner we began the trek down the long, long hallway back to our room, and we then fell exhausted into our (wonderfully soft and plush) bed. In the morning we enjoyed massages and a delicious brunch, and bid a sad farewell to a really amazing place.

We’re back home now, and Chuck is relaxing before the big stream crossing run tomorrow morning and then the party in the late afternoon. Me, I’m uploading the pics taken so far to Flickr and converting to Flash the video tour of our Four Seasons hotel room suite (part two of the tour is here).