San Diego - Thursday

Wow!  I am really being a bad tourist so far.  But I'm really enjoying myself too.  It is so beautiful here and so very different from my normal surroundings that I just walk and walk and walk.  I was sure I would spend an entire day at Balboa Park and it's Friday, we check out at 2:00 and get our flights to SF this evening so maybe next time.

In my own defense, rain was forecast I think for Wednesday and I figured that would be a good day to go to the park because I probably would skip the world-famous zoo (which is there) and visit several of the museums which would be a nice dry thing to do.  But no rain Wednesday, Thursday and now Friday and each day just has been brighter and sunnier than the last and I am loving it.  So, there now.

Yesterday I decided I had to find a good fish taco place because I finally had a fish taco the last time I visited my sister in Massachusetts and discovered that they were quite good.  (I had always thought "ooh, yuck, fish in a taco?")  I dithered around for quite a while checking Trip Advisor reviews trying to find one relatively nearby, etc. and finally gave up and asked at the concierge desk.  She told me about two and I picked the one that was an area I hadn't walked around in yet.  Found it and ordered two - one with deep-fried battered fish (I think beer batter) and the other with grilled mahimahi.  They were both quite good but the battered one was my favorite.  And every place you go has outdoor seating so that's what I did.

So when I was done with that, my map told me that I was just inside the Gas Lamp District which is one of the oldest areas of the current downtown San Diego.  A little info from Wikipedia - " Its main period of development began in 1867, when Alonzo Horton bought the land in hopes of creating a new city center closer to the bay, and chose 5th Avenue as its main street. After a period of urban decay, the neighborhood underwent urban renewal in the 1980s and 1990s."  It's a nice quiet district of 16-1/2 blocks with no stoplights or even stop signs.  STOP is painted on the pavement at each intersection and that's just what the cars do.  One of the very few pictures I took is of the Horton Hotel because it is just so pretty.  Reminds me very much of antebellum south.  In one of there windows there were photographs on the wall and one was a poster with "Save the Horton Hotel" on it so hopefully, we're now seeing it in its saved state. :)

One end of the hotel.  The picture below is the middle and then there's another one of these on the other side of it.

 This was a water display in a strange sort of park pretty much across a very broad street from our hotel.  I liked this scene mainly because of all the birds lined up on the "thingie".  And you can't really see it, but that whole big group of poles standing up in the pool are individual "fountains".  The park consisted of no grass, plenty of trees (as there are everywhere here), and big circles laid out by using curved pavement tiles I guess.  Outside the circle was sort of dirt (although not the kind that turns to mud I think) and inside the circle was dirt.  So, as I said - a little strange...

 Just another one with one of the many, many beautiful buildings as a backdrop.  I think that's why I find San Diego so lovely - downtown is mostly skyscrapers but they're not just towers of glass.  They are imaginatively styled and catch your interest.

There was no way to get a really good shot of this tree - there are a bunch of them in the landscaping outside our hotel and I love them.  They look like prehistoric relics or something.  They're an interesting color and they've got all those "warts" on them.  The flowers are interesting too.  There are the bright red "petals" and coming out of them a sort of pine cone shaped thing.  

Oh, I almost forgot to say - on my walk through the district I was stopped by two different groups of young people doing a scavenger hunt.  They needed a picture of a woman in a pink shirt and asked permission and were very grateful.  They were having a great time and I saw a third group of them asking someone for whatever they were looking for.  It's funny - when I posted about the Urban Trail in Asheville, I wanted to say it was kind of like doing a scavenger hunt but I could NOT remember the name so I just called it a treasure hunt.  

Heather wasn't feeling real good last night and so after they got out of their "sessions" and collapsed for a while, we left Heather to collapse a while longer and went and got a tasty pizza.

And that's about it.  Strange I realize, but as I said, I'm liking it.

Nice day in a small portion of San Diego

After a day of travel fraught with various and sundry trials (which I won't bore you with although I did keep a record of them because they continued from the very beginning of the trip, pretty much through to the end) I arrived at the San Diego Airport actually about 30 minutes early!  The tide was obviously already turning although there was the struggle to find my way to the "transportation plaza".  But I did, caught a shuttle and got dropped off at the hotel, went in and got my room key and got myself upstairs where Heather and January were all comfy in bed watching the end of a movie.  Of course, my arrival time at the airport in Eastern time was 12:15 p.m. so I was pretty tired as were they.  It was hard getting my mind around the fact that it was only going on 10:00 p.m. now.

We visited a little while but it was obvious they were ready to drift off so I got comfy in bed too and read for just a bit to sort of quiet down.

Wednesday morning we all woke up sort of wiped out and since the forecast was for rain today, I decided to stay in for the most part and explore the waterfront a little if the weather permitted.  We had the hotel's buffet breakfast which was fine but at the price I sure didn't get my money's worth!

They got themselves off to their conference and I went back up to the room and sat out on the balcony and read for a while (after taking a few pictures of the view)

 To the left...

 Looking straight down, the hotel's gorgeous swimming pool setting.

And to the right.

Once I had enough of that and it still wasn't raining and in fact was a fairly beautiful day - plenty of clouds scudding around but blue sky, sunshine, etc., I decided to explore around the hotel a little and discovered that it's almost in Embarcadero Park which as far as I know is basically a "boardwalk" (cement) walkway around one of the harbors (ports?).  It's all quite lovely and with all the different plants that we sure don't have at home, quite exotic.  On the one side is the water with many enormous private yachts and on the right are many shops, restaurants, cafes, etc.  The yachts finally peter out and it begins to look more like a harbor with some big ships visible in the distance and a couple of older ships that are still in use from the looks of them closer up.

I've taken pictures of things that caught my eye (probably mostly trees) and will just put them up in a row.  Not as many as sometimes but that's partly because it was bright enough outside that I couldn't see on my camera whether or not I was getting good pictures and so I didn't take as many as usual.

Anyway, here they are...

 These are a few of the giant yachts (and not the most giant ones actually).  There were at least three piers of these and all one can think is "my gosh, the money".

I really enjoyed all the different types of threes.  These were so twisty and as you can see below, so were their roots which seem to like getting some air.

 I think this is the same kind - just very much bigger.

This is one of the well-used and still in working order ships.

This is a longggg bridge - would love to know the total size of the span.  At night there are lights all along the edge - I saw them last night driving to the hotel.  And I only discovered on a second walk this afternoon that where it looks like it's ended at the trees, it hasn't - it still goes on for a while.

Many, many palm trees, of course, but this one appealed to me being all by itself and standing so straight and proud surrounded by all the tall buildings.

 When I first saw this a plane was taking off and I wondered if that could possibly be the airport.  But the center looked like a battleship and the planes - what I could see of them - didn't look all that big.  So I finally said to a young man sitting reading that I wondered what that was and explained that at first I thought airport and then thought maybe it was an aircraft carrier and that is what it is and it's the USS Midway and has been turned in to what is reportedly the most popular ship museum in the world!  So how bout that?

I'm not sure if these are the exact same trees as the first two because their bark was quite white and very peel-y.

And look at this one!!  How it stays upright (well, not upright exactly) I can't quite imagine.

And this was just sort of a little glade in the grounds where the shops and such are located.  Very nice and peaceful.

And that's about it, really - it's been a very restful, pleasant day and I've been Googling around looking for what might be a good restaurant for dinner and think I may have found one.  I'll wait and see what "my girls" think. :)