San Diego-Our New #1
- Apr 4, 2022
- 5 min read
Wow! What at town! What a city and what a great week we had in San Diego. It was truly fantastic. Between the weather, the Pacific Ocean, La Jolla, the seals, Torrey Pines and more, San Diego just took our breath away. It has taken over as our favorite place we've visited so far.
With that said, our campsite also rocked. This is our second stay in a State Park. Our first one was in Destin, Fl. and this one was at Sweetwater Summit Regional in Bonita, Ca. It's a half hour from downtown San Diego, twenty minutes from La Jolla, and a little less than forty minutes from Torrey Pines. It was private, inexpensive, had a cement pad, patio, fire pit and picnic table.
The first night in San Diego we went to Little Italy and ate at Buon Appetitto. The food was good, the service was attentive and all of Little Italy was popping (it was a Sunday night). The streets were packed as were a lot of the restaurants. It had a good energy.
Oh yeh, the four hour drive to San Diego from Yuma Az. was pretty easy with exception to an 18 mile white knuckle stretch through the mountains with a 6% downward/ upward grade.
Our first full day in San Diego was spent at the world famous zoo. We had fun. Kathy loved it. Brad thought it was overrated. How could it be the best zoo in the United States if it only had one tiger, two lions, and not one gorilla? Come on! We spent six hours there so it didn’t suck. Here’s some pictures. We’ll let them tell the story.
We had Coronado Island on our San Diego to-do list. When our brother-in-law (J Kolb) recommended to visit the Del Coronado Hotel we made that our first stop. Boy, was that a home run. The property was breathtaking. The hotel is right on the beach. It must have had 1000 rooms, outdoor patio bars, restaurants, stores, gelato. It was magnificent.
After touring the Del we took a 15 mile e-bike ride in Coronado Island. We hit Silver Strand State Beach, Coronado Fairy Landing Park, a Farmers Market and we picnicked at Tidewell Park. Kathy only got pissed at Brad once for making a wrong turn so that was pretty good and we were only 6.5 miles from Tijuana.
That night one of Brad's Cheltenham High School buddies came over for dinner. We don't entertain much so it was a great treat getting to hang out with Tim McCool for the evening. We laughed and ate and drank till late night. Tim was not only a great guest to talk and party with but he brought the main course. It's called Tri-Tip and in San Diego it's nickname, or, how it's known is "crack". Holy cow...what a great piece of meat. We learned tri-tip is marinated in burgundy wine and other tasty marinated treats and is as tender a piece of meat as tender could be. Brad cooked it on the outside grill along with some asparagas. We drank a little too much wine before dinner so Brad forgot to make his world famous hollandaise sauce for the vegetable. We did serve our 1905 salad which is always a treat. Tim was not only a generous and gracious guest but we laughed and shared stories til late night. On top of that, Tim also made some local recommendations for us to visit while in town and boy were those on point. Torrey Pines, La Jolla, were both great. Thanks Tim! We thoroughly enjoyed your company.
Not sure what Brad had stuck in his teeth above??? Haha! The next day we went to Mission Beach for a few hours then we hit the motherload when we got to La Jolla (pronounced La-HUOY-uH). When we got to La Jolla Beach we couldn't find a place to park so we continued up the coast line. We ran into seal city. Literally, the coastline at La Jolla was littered with seals and sea lions. They were in the water, on the rocks and on the beach. It was nature at it's finest and for us northerners is was a sight to see. Beautiful!
Next was one of our most wonderful days of our entire trip. We went to Torrey Pines.
We didn't originally have Torrey Pines on our to-do list but thanks to Tim, we added it. How can we describe it? Wonderful! Magnificent! Breathtaking! Beautiful! It's a geographical wonderland!
When we first arrived we grabbed a nice lunch. Then we went to Torrey Pines State Beach. We walked the beach as Brad collected a couple handfuls of rocks. Yes rocks. He collects the prettiest ones, marks where he gets them from and uses them for a combination of decoration and paper weights. The Pacific Ocean is just stunning.
The beach was a great start to the Torrey Pines visit even though we didn't stay long but the Torrey Pines Nature Reserve was the highlight of the day. We drove up to the top of the Reserve in our car and then hiked 3 different trails. Each one had it's own personality but the common denominator of all three were the spectacular hills with views of the ocean. Below is the first one.
This was the second.
And the third was West Overlook Trail.
We're not golfers but a lot of our friends are. We are familiar with the world famous Torrey Pines Golf Course so we had to take a peak.
We hit the city the next day. We went to the East Village and the Gaslamp sections of San Diego. We started out on a drive through the East Village. Not only did we never get out of the car but Kathy couldn't get out of the area fast enough. There was a lot of homeless and plenty of tent camps. We did get a picture of PetCo Park while there and then had a great experience once we hit the Gaslamp section.
There were two or three streets, three or four blocks long filled with restaurants, bars and shoppes. There was a ton of outdoor dining too. One of the streets was blocked off for traffic to make it more convenient for partiers. We stopped at one local watering hole called "Happy Does" and had a beverage. They served it in plastic and charged $14 a piece. The drink was nothing to write home to Momma about but the bartender was cool and personable. He recommended a couple restaurants for us which took us to the Water Grill. We ate at the bar and dug the food, the atmosphere and the bartender.
San Diego rocked. We left for LA the next day feeling like nothing could top the week we just had in San Diego. Great weather, wonderful ocean, good food, delightful views and a heckuva a campground. San Diego, you get an "A+". We'll be back. Thanks for reading down this far. Kathy and Brad.
Love San Diego. Been a few times for the ESRI world GIS conference there at the Conference center. Last couple times stayed at the Hard Rock Hotel right there. Went there with Shirlon’. We had a great time. Our fave restaurant was The Water Grill. Superb. We booked a trip out but COVID hot so we didn’t go to that conference.
If I didn't already live here, this would have convinced me to move here. 😎
I love reading your posts… I still think San Diego Zoo is awesome, no hollandaise sauce? Understandable… and thanks for the beautiful reminders of all that SD has to offer. Peace and love!