A few days in San Diego: Day 1

Our mini-vacation in San Diego came about because of the MathWorks' 30-Year Celebration, three years ago. As I was trying to figure out what to do during the one half-day that was free from the company-sponsored activities, the following difficulties presented itself: there was Balboa park, with a model railroad museum, an aerospace museum, and a museum of old automobiles - now obviously, going to any of these museums without my husband would have been not only counter-intuitive, it was almost sacrilegious. I also saw a couple of submarines and an aircraft carrier along the embankment, as well as streetcar tracks... that's when I realized that I will want to come back with Alex and really have a go at this city!..

Every vacation starts with planning where to stay and where to eat. It would have seemed natural to stay in the Gaslamp Quarter (which I did get a chance to explore on my own 3 years ago), unless you knew my husband: he is not a big nightlife-and-shopping fan, and so I personally gave him about half-an-hour before he would get tired of it. So I chose Ocean Park Inn as our base: it is located directly on the beach, like this.

Our room had a king-size bed, a fridge, a coffeemaker, and a balcony (as indicated in the first photo). Here I am, having coffee on the balcony, as usual.

Our room did not face the beach, it looked onto the extension of Grand Ave. We did have a side view of the ocean (behind the lifeguard station in the photo above), but what we could mostly see (and hear, especially on weekend nights) was the three bars/nightclubs across the road, with one more around the corner. This provided for interesting people-watching opportunities, while also making it somewhat challenging to sleep between 9 pm and 2 am, so if you are a light sleeper, you might want to consider getting a room with a full ocean view, they are quieter.

Initially, our vacation was supposed to happen in October, but then we had to reschedule for February, for reasons I won't go into here. I was slightly nervous about the usefulness of a beachfront hotel in February, but I needn't have been. Even with the weather in mid-60's, we enjoyed walking on the beach, as well as taking full advantage of the outdoors hot tub (which we had to ourselves at this time of year).

As far as attractions go, we started at the San Diego Zoo. It is really very impressive. The highlight, of course, are the pandas. Here is one sleeping...

... and one eating.

Also the koalas. Mostly sleeping...

... but this one is awake.

Here are a couple of sloths hanging around...

... while we were watching, one of them moved and started eating something like a cucumber.

They also have tigers...

... orangutans ...

... a "maned wolf" (who is not really a wolf)...

.... some unusual birds...

... and a tufted capuchin monkey who repeated all of Alex's movements.

After the Zoo, we moved to Balboa park, next door. Honestly, I was pretty tired by then, but we did visit the Timken (which has a very nice, if small, art collection) and the model railroad museum, where we managed to prevent a transportation disaster.

See how the engine with the tender got detached from the rest of the train in the tunnel and started running away? We noticed and alerted some of the volunteers who worked there, and they managed to cut the power and reconnect the train before the next train traveling on this track crashed into it.

That completed our first day, we did the rest of the museums on a separate visit. That night, we had dinner at the Duck Dive, walking distance from our hotel. Very nice, tasty and quite affordable.

>> Next day

A few days in San Diego: Day 2

Next day, we decided to mix it up a bit, and - instead of finishing up at the Balboa park - headed to the Embarcadero. That's "landing place" in Spanish, and in San Diego, this is the official name of the city's waterfront promenade. Along the Embarcadero, going North to South, is the Maritime museum, a cruise ship terminal, the USS Midway museum, and finally, Seaport Village with shops, restaurants, souvenirs, etc.

On the way, we stopped at Point Loma. Besides its historic significance, this is supposed to be a good lookout to spot the migrating whales, with February being the right season for such an activity. However, the whales decided not to cooperate, and so we had to console ourselves with the famous Old Point Loma lighthouse...

... and equally famous Cabrillo monument, commemorating the Portuguese navigator.

After that, we drove to the Embarcadero. There is a parking lot right next to the USS Midway museum, but it was already full, so we drove a few hundred yards ahead and turned right. That brought us to the little peninsular dominated by the "Victory Kiss" statue - a larger-than-life replica of the iconic photograph from World War II. And when I say "larger-than-life," I mean it literally...

The place is called Tuna Harbor park, it has some metered spaces, and we parked in one of them. The meters have a 3-hour limit, which was less convenient than a parking lot, but very fortunately this little peninsular is also home to the Top of the Market restaurant (on top of the Fish Market), where I planned to have lunch. So it all worked out: we started with the USS Midway, returned to have lunch, recharged the meter, and then took a longer walk to the Maritime Museum and the Santa Fe train station.

Here is Alex about to go on the USS Midway...

... and here is a random plane. Not sure exactly why I took this picture, probably because I liked how the wings fold back.

An interesting piece of trivia we learned: Alex asked one of the volunteers answering questions, how did they get the planes stored inside the carrier up on the deck? Turns out, there are four lifts (two on each side), each lift can carry two planes, and it takes 20 seconds to get a plane from the bowels of the carrier up on the deck. Here we are, standing on one of the lifts (now permanently in the "down" position and turned into a cafe). This whole platform used to slide up and down on two rails, one of which you can see in the far-left corner.

I highly recommend the Top of the Market restaurant, especially for lunch. You have an option of sitting on a heated terrace with magnificent views of the harbor...

... the menu is interesting, the ambiance - very nice.

After enjoying our lunch, we fed the meter and started on the second half of our program. The Maritime Museum, located in the northern part of the Embarcadero, boasts several sailing ships (including Star of India, "the world’s oldest active sailing ship") and a couple of submarines, one American (USS Dolphin) and one Russian (B-39, diesel-electric).

Here I am steering the Star of India.

And here is the B-39.

It was built in Leningrad in the 1960s and served on active duty for more than 20 years. We got a kick out of all the Russian inscriptions.

After all the ships, we decided to make a little foray into the city itself, and that's when Alex got a look at the first few trains and streetcars. They come in different colors, with the color of the train not necessarily matching its color line designation. Here, for example, is a "Green Line" train that is partially yellow and partially red.

Alex was outraged: something like this would never happen in Boston!

Later, however, he was pleased to see a red train that was totally red...

... and the main train and trolley depot, the Santa Fe station, with an Amtrak train next to it.

After so much train happiness, we were ready for dinner. I had a place in mind: when we were there with the MathWorks, I stayed at the Hilton on Harbor island. Harbor Island, quite surprisingly, is not an island by any means but a kind of T-shaped peninsular sticking out into the harbor near the airport and providing beautiful views of downtown San Diego. At the very tip of the T (farthest from downtown) is Tom Ham's Lighthouse, which is not a lighthouse any longer but a very good restaurant with a terrace... you get the drift...

We started with the drinks and had a delightful dinner. We were sitting near the wall (and under the heater, which came in handy later), and in front of our eyes the sky and the city changed colors from silver...

... to gold...

... to pink...

... and finally to darkest blue...

>> Next day

A few days in San Diego: Day 3

The following day was Saturday, and we started it at the Balboa park. There was much more of a crowd, compared to Thursday, and the parking lots off the Village Pl. (closest to El Prado) were full, but we took the next right and found a spot near the Fleet Science Center. From there, we walked across the park, past the Japanese garden (photo below), and to the Air & Space Museum.

Being married to Alex, I've had to visit a lot of airspace museums over the years. The very best of them, hands down (in my opinion), is the one in Tuscon, AZ. And this one, in San Diego (again in my opinion), is hardly even worth a visit. For one thing, they seem slightly confused as to which side we were on during the war. Several exhibits fawning over German planes, and especially the one raving about a Nazi fighter-pilot, made me wonder. As to the museum collection, it is mostly papier-mache replicas of something or other. The highlight is a Moon rock, which they keep inside a thick glass case... as someone who'd had a chance to see and touch a Moon rock at the Smithsonian, I was less than impressed. In short, my recommendation is to spend your time and money on something else, there are plenty of things to see and do in Balboa Park.

For example, the Automotive museum, right next door. Apart from an interesting collection of old cars and motorcycles (most of them red and some of them you can climb into), they have the Louie Mattar's Fabulous Car, which is truly unique.

The car is based on a 1947 Cadillac, with a few enhancements by Louie... like a portable phone (that's the 50s, remember), a public address system, and a hookah on the dashboard... as well as an electric stove, a refrigerator, a washing machine, a chemical toilet, an ironing board, a medicine cabinet, and a kitchen sink, all in the back seat. You can see some of this equipment in the photo below, the other items (when not in use) can be stored under the back seat cushions.

The thing sticking out of the right front fender is a shower head, the car carries 50 gallons of water (so you can take a shower without stopping the car, or use a drinking fountain over the taillight). The trailer carries an additional 30 gallons of water, 230 gallons of gas, 15 gallons of oil, and has a dining area at the end.

In 1952, the guy (with two friends) drove the Cadillac from San Diego to New York and back without stopping. Their trip totaled 6,320 miles and required refueling from a moving gas truck three times. They could even change a tire without stopping the car, from a movable platform that attaches to the car when needed and is stored in the trailer other times (at the museum, they show a movie of how exactly that was done).

After these two museums, it was definitely time for lunch. We walked back to El Prado and went into the Panama 66 restaurant, adjacent to the San Diego Museum of Art (which was next on our list anyway). I highly recommend their cocktails, especially El Presidente. The menu is somewhat limited because their kitchen is under construction, so no hot food - only salads and sandwiches, but quite adequate for lunch. You can sit in the garden and watch the people outside in the plaza.

After lunch, we went to the art museum, which was OK - but nothing special. If you don't have time for both, I would definitely recommend Timken over this one. As an extra bonus, Timken has a whole room full of Russian icons (which I forgot to mention in my previous post).

And then we were done with Balboa park. Next on our schedule was the famous Gaslamp Quarter. Driving from Balboa park, we approached it from north-east and parked in a public lot at the corner of Eight Avenue and C Street. (That's where Alex saw a green trolley, going down C Street.)

Then we started walking along, generally in a south-westerly direction. As you might remember, originally I gave Alex about half-an-hour to get bored by the Gaslamp Quarter, but in reality it took him no more than 15 minutes to say that he's seen it and got an impression, and let's go somewhere else. So we crossed over the train tracks, came to the San Diego Convention Center (where MathWorks had the company meeting three years ago, so I kind of knew the place), climbed over it (they have stairs going up and down), and found ourselves near the harbor again.

From there, we took a ferry to Coronado island.

This was the least successful part of our trip. Although sunny, the day turned colder, and the wind there was simply vicious... we got some souvenirs, took a couple of pictures, and jumped on the very next ferry back. Except, not exactly back - there are two ferry lines to Coronado, one from the Convention Center (every half an hour), and the other one from the Embarcadero, right next to the USS Midway (once an hour). That's the one we took on the way back, because it brought us close to the restaurant I had in mind for dinner.

Lion's Share has a game-heavy menu, nice cocktails, a decent wine list, and a quirky atmosphere. Lots of polished wood, candles, flowers, hunting theme to match the menu.

They have really good deals during happy hour, so we started with a couple of cocktails and appetizers (deviled eggs and rabbit sausage). If I lived in the neighborhood I'd go there all the time. Then we had dinner with a couple of glasses of Portuguese red. My quail was delicious, with a nice combination of sweet-and-sour (waffle and greens).

This was a perfect ending of the busy day.

>> Next day

A few days in San Diego: Day 4

Our last day in San Diego was Sunday, and not just any Sunday... it was the day for the Patriots to win their fifth Superbowl! And in California the game starts at 3:30 pm... So that left us only the first half of the day for sightseeing, and we decided to spend it in La Jolla (which was only 20 minutes by car from our hotel).

La Jolla Cove has several claims to fame. For the longest time, it was a safe harbor for smugglers who came by sea and left their loot in the "seven caves" (sea grottoes), just to the north of the cove. Six of these grottoes can be explored only from sea, by renting a sea kayak. But one cave, called Sunny Jim Sea Cave, has a man-made tunnel leading into it from a nearby house on the cliffs. The house is now a souvenir shop.

Of course, as soon as I learned about a cave and a tunnel, there was no doubt that our near future held these 145 steps (each way)... The tunnel was probably used by bootleggers during the Prohibition period.

The steps were shallow and not really slippery, a piece of cake after our little Ronda adventure... After the steps and the tunnel, you come to the mouth of the cave, which apparently resembles in shape the profile of Sunny Jim – the cartoon character on the British Wheat Force cereal products of the 1920's. Or at least, L. Frank Baum (who wrote The Wizard of Oz) thought so... he named the cave, and the name stuck.

Here I am inside the cave, feeling like an ancient pirate or smuggler.

And this is how the cave looks from the promenade along the shore.

Even if you are not into caves and tunnels, La Jolla Cove is worth a visit, because it is home to sea lions, seals, pelicans, cormorants, and all kinds of other birds. It is very picturesque, with great views and plenty of opportunities to make up-close and personal wildlife photos. You can barely see some brown pelicans along the far edge of the cliff in the photo above, but here is a better view.

And here are some more pelican photos.

Next to the pelican in the photo above, that's a regular double-crested cormorant, with an orange throat pouch. But further along the cliffs, there is a whole nesting colony of Brandt's cormorant, the one that has a bright-blue throat pouch in breeding plumage.

In this photo, you can see her eggs.

And here is a male doing a typical mating display: "drawing head back with blue throat pouch extended and bill pointed upward, spreading tail, and fluttering wings"...

Going further down (south) along the promenade, here is a view back across the cove...

... and then, when you turn the corner...

Sea lions are so used to camera-toting tourists that they ignore you completely, and you can come really close. Here is Alex taking pictures of a couple of sea lions...

... and here are some of the pictures he took.

After getting back from La Jolla, we had just enought time to prepare for the game. Originally, we planned to watch it from the Duck Dive, the restaurant near our hotel where we had dinner the first night. They had big TVs everywhere... But when we walked over about an hour before the game, to check it out, we realized that it was packed and the crowd didn't look like football fans. Alex, of course, was already wearing his Brady jersey.

So we switched to plan B, got a couple of sandwiches, a salad, and a bottle of wine in the nearest supermarket, to be able to watch from our hotel room. And spent the rest of the time before the game by walking to the Crystal Pier (in the background, behind Alex, in the photo above).

There were some surfers...

... the underside of the pier reminded me fondly of Old Orchard Beach...

... and there was another couple also walking on the beach, along the water edge.

This is the last photo. We watched the game - what an unbelievable game it was! - and then went out for our final dinner to The Patio on Lamont. We walked there (about half an hour each way, but the walk was pleasant - especially because Alex was still wearing his jersey and everybody kept congratulating him with the victory). The Patio on Lamont is a really nice place, a heated patio with an interesting menu and a good wine list. It is not a sports bar, so only a couple of other tables were taken, and we had a quiet and enjoyable dinner there.

And the next day, Monday, we said good bye to San Diego and flew home.