San Diego, California

2009-05-17

We took highway 74 south through the Sierra Nevada Mountains for about an hour. We both noticed the temperature start to fall as we got higher up into the mountains. We eventually got onto Interstate 15 south and had our first real dose of heavy traffic since leaving Houston almost three weeks ago. We cut over to Interstate 5 and were soon in San Marcos, which is about 30 miles north of San Diego. San Diego was the stomping ground for the indigenous Kumeyaay Indians until 1769 when a band of missionaries founded the first of 21 missions here. The population remained small until 1867 when Alonzo Horton created the so called New Town, which evolved into today’s downtown. It was World War II and the attack on Pearl Harbour that promoted the Navy to relocate the Pacific Fleet here and since then the growth has been phenomenal. We arrived at Lori’s cousin’s (Christine) house around 4 pm. Her husband, Aaron, was out of town when we arrived. We spent some time visiting with Christine and playing with Boogie, their two year old Yorkshire terrier before we unpacked the car. As we had not cooked in a proper kitchen for a few weeks, we volunteered to make fajitas and went to the nearby Albertson’s to pick up supplies. We had fun making dinner and then spent a few hours eating and catching up with each other. Christine had a busy routine as she is in an RN programme and goes to class and work most of the week. We all decided to watch the movie Twilight that night. Lori still had not finished the book, so she found out how it all ended. Ian and Christine told her that it followed the book pretty closely. Christine was only going to watch part of the movie as she had seen it and had to leave early the next morning to go to school, but she ended up watching the whole thing in the end.

It reminded us a bit of the Bronx Botanical Gardens we had visited in December that had had a natural display of New York with trains.

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2009-05-18

As there were not many things in San Diego that we wanted to see, we slept in that morning. Lori got up before Ian and Ian finally made it out of bed close to ten. Christine did not want Bogie to disturb us, so she left him in her cage in her room, but we could hear him and decided to let him out until we were going to leave. We had breakfast, did some admin, and got ready. It was close to lunch time, so we made lunch before leaving. We drove to Balboa Park, which is not only a gorgeous park filled with beautiful flowers and plants, but has several museums and the city zoo. In 1892, Kate Sessions, used her green thumb on what was a dirt patch. Since then, two world fairs have also helped to transform the park. As we had both seen our share of museums and tons of animals on the trip, we decided only to stroll through the park. We walked down El Prado to the Cabrillo Bridge. We walked back up the El Prado and stopped at the Botanical Building, which was a pretty piece of architecture in itself while also housing some beautiful plants. Lori had a good time taking photos inside. It reminded us a bit of the Bronx Botanical Gardens we had visited in December that had had a natural display of New York with trains. We finished our walk in the park at the Inez Grant Parker Memorial Rose Garden. Using a combination of our Lonely Planet book and the GPS, Lori guided us to Mission Beach. We managed to find a parking space and went for a short walk along the carless street in front of the beach. The sun had faded when we got to the beach and we both noticed a temperature drop. That is why we only took a short walk along the beach. The sand on the beach was the only nice thing about the beach as it was covered in seaweed and the water was freezing. With the darker weather, the water was not a pretty shade of blue. We continued to drive up the coast into the town of La Jolla, which was covered with cute shops and roundabouts filled with flowers. We stopped at La Jolla Cove, where Ian got out to take some photos and Lori stayed in the warmth of the car. The spot is renound for seals, but we did not see any while we were there. We made our way back to Christine’s house. We arrived home shortly before her. We decided to make chicken stir fry for dinner that night and went back to Albertson’s to get some supplies. We had another nice dinner and visit with Christine. She showed us her beautiful wedding photos after dinner. She had to be at work the next morning around 5 am, so we went to bed after dinner and we stayed up watching Lost Season 4 episodes.

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2009-05-19

We did not sleep in quiet as much, but still had a lazy morning playing with Bogie and watching more Lost episodes. After having breakfast, getting ready and having lunch, we drove into San Diego downtown to the Gaslight Quarter. This area of town used to consist of saloons, gambling establishments and bordellos, but has since been restored to include restaurants and bars. We managed to find parking at a meter and avoid paying $10 that most of the garages wanted to park. We enjoyed wandering through the area, but through that it would have been more exciting at night. Christine had told us about a frozen Yogurt place called PinkBerry, so we decided to try it. We both got the natural smoothie with blueberries, strawberries and raspberries. The yogurt also contains macrobiotics, so it is supposed to be very healthy. On the way back to the park, we walked by Petco Park, which is home to the San Diego Padres baseball team. The baseball park had a park in front of it that looked like it would be nice to hang out in. As there was a game that day, the park was closed. We decided to try out another San Diego beach and drove to Ocean Beach. We got lucky and the road we turned down had a pier at the end of it, so we parked and walked it. It was not as cold that day as the previous day and the sun was shining, so the beach looked a little more inviting despite all the seaweed still strewn across it. There was nothing else that we really wanted to see in San Diego and we wanted to spend time with Aaron who was arriving back into town, so we headed back to their house. We were making a barbeque roast that night and had marinated the beef joint over night. Aaron and Christine arrived home shortly after us. We finished making dinner and spent several hours talking. We had met Aaron briefly at Christmas time, so it was nice to get to know him better. We had a great time with Christine and Aaron. Ian and Aaron played some games on Aaron’s playstation, while Lori and Christine did some things on the computer. We watched another episode of Lost before going to bed.

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2009-05-20

Christine had the day off and Aaron did not have to go into work until late, so we got to visit with them in the morning over breakfast. We got ready, packed up the car and said our goodbyes. We had had a great time and hope that we get to see them again soon.

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