San Diego 12-2012

A funny thing happened.  I travel a lot and living in Dallas, I always fly one airline (who shall remain nameless).  With all my travel this year I found myself short of the required miles needed to retain my gold status.  While I know that you don't get much anymore these days unless you live on the plane, retaining the bottom-feeder status on this airline gets me enough to ease some of the pain of traveling.  

As I said, I found myself short and running out of time.  So, I bribed John into going to San Diego for the weekend. 

I booked our flight, hotel and car.  And this past weekend, we took off.  We got to San Diego about 9:30 and drove around just a little bit before heading out to our hotel.

 

Down by the bay, all the palm trees were lit up.  I thought they looked kind of cool.

This outline of a ship is the Star of India, which is one of the oldest active sailing ships, built in 1863.

After a short tour downtown, we headed to our hotel in La Jolla.  The next morning we were up and at 'em.

John used to come out to San Diego quite a bit when he worked at Intuit, so he was somewhat familiar with the area so he showed me around.  First stop was Del Mar.  Oh my gosh!  It is absolutely beautiful there. 

After Del Mar we decided to drive North a bit to head back to Torrey Pines.  This is one of the public beaches on the way in a town called Cardiff by the Sea.

John in Cardiff by the Sea.

 

I'm not a big fan of the beach but I sure do love the ocean.  It was pretty cold and windy while we were there but there were still people out in the Pacific surfing.

That would be me perched on a rock like a beached...something.

So when we first got here, it was raining.  Then it cleared up pretty nicely.  However, there were still dark clouds hanging around and I thought they made a nice background for the palms.

Next stop was Torrey Pines Gliderport.  This is a cliff that hang gliders jump from as they glide across the ocean.  It has the most fantastic views.

Nice sign.  We did happen to go out past the sign but at least we didn't go down to the beach.  There were actually people going down to the beach from here when we left.  They must have known a secret entrance because from where I stood, it was a straight drop down.

As we drove along the coast there were lots of hills.  California has the benefit of the magnificent ocean as well as the mountains.  There were houses everywhere!  But I guess everyone wants a view and there are plenty to be had.

After dinking around on the beach, we headed out to Coronado Island.  This is the Coronado Island Bay Bridge.  Once you get on, you are committed and God help you if you breakdown.  There is no where to go.  Still, it's an amazing structure.

Hotel del Coronado (aka Hotel Del).  This is a very nice hotel.  We tried to book a room here for the weekend and they were booked.  No room at the inn.

 

A view of downtown San Diego from Coronado.

Another view of downtown San Diego, this from the Harbor Island point of view. 

Some boats that were moored in San Diego Bay.

San Diego is a huge Navy town.  On the docks, they have the USS Midway museum.  The USS Midway is an aircraft carrier that was commissioned right after WWII.  She served 47 years and was in Desert Storm.  Now she's a museum and an interesting one at that.

We got really lucky.  There were hardly any people there that Saturday.  We got to walk right up for a tour of the traffic control tower, the chart room and the bridge.  It was very cool.

All the docents on the ship either served on the USS Midway or they served on an aircraft carrier that was similar.  They were all retired military.  Being around all this Navy stuff made me think of my dad.

Me aboard the USS Midway.

Our last stop before heading back to the hotel to rest up for dinner was the Gaslamp Quarter.  It reminded me of the West End in Dallas.  It sounded cool but it was just shops and restaurants.  We drove through and called it done.

As I said, the Navy owns this town.  We had dinner at Island Prime on Harbor Island.  We got lucky and got a window seat.  We had a beautiful view of the harbor.  The Fly Navy photo was taken right from our table.

After dinner, we walked around the deck for a few minutes and I got a nice picture of San Diego all lit up.

This was absolutely beautiful.  The first night we drove by this church and you could see it from the highway.  This is the Church of the Latter Day Saints in La Jolla.

 Mary, Star of the Sea Catholic Church.

 The mural over the entrance of the church.

The statue that's in the garden to the left of the entrance.  I would love to have seen this at night.  It's a beautiful statue.

Our last day here.  Our flight didn't leave until 3:30 so we got up early and headed down to Balboa Park.  This is the Museum of Man.  I have no idea what's in here but I first thought it was a church.  The building is magnificent.

Balboa Park Visitors Center.  There were so many cool buildings and museums here we could probably have spent the whole day. 

This tree was in the parking lot of the park.  All the trees had thick trunks.  I wonder how old it is.

The Star of India.  You can go aboard.  It's a maritime museum.

These statues are in the park by the USS Midway.

 

This would have been my family when my dad came back from sea.

We took a harbor cruise.  It was about an hour.  It was nice and relaxing.  Coming back in I saw this building.  It looks like it's bursting out of it's wrapping.

This was really cool.  When we came in on Friday, our plan flew right between all the buildings on one side and a neighborhood on the other.  Here's a plane coming in the same way.  Only one runway here at the San Diego airport.

Another shot of the Coronado Island Bay Bridge from the harbor cruise as we're about to pass under.

Goofing around at Balboa Park.

Riding off into the sunset.  Goodbye San Diego!  We had a great time.