San Diego, day 2

Saturday

IMG_1477sWe didn’t have any specific plans for the day, but we had a list of possibilities. The only constraint was that our activities should have minimal walking, as my mom’s mobility is somewhat restricted.

We stopped by their motel a bit after nine and after discussing the possibilities decided to do a two-hour harbor tour in the morning and visit the Cabrillo National Monument in the afternoon.

Littoral Combat Ship

Littoral Combat Ship

The weather was on the cool side and overcast. The first part of the tour is a loop of the northern half of the harbor. We passed the boats of the San Diego Maritime Museum (the Star of India, the HMS Surprise, a Soviet submarine), the live bait barges and their attendant sea lions sunning themselves, and the submarine pens below Point Loma. A small flotilla of pleasure craft raced ahead of us, exiting the harbor. We turned around and concentrated on Naval Air Station North Island.

IMG_1538sThe USS Ronald Reagan, CVN-76, is berthed there undergoing repairs and refitting. It was in the same place last time we visited the area, ten or twelve years ago. (How long has it really been? I was still using a film camera at the time).

The tour boat went back to the dock to disembark the folks who only bought the one hour tour and load up another set of folks for the southern harbor loop. This loop took us under the San Diego

US Naval Ship Bob Hope (T-AKR-300)

US Naval Ship Bob Hope (T-AKR-300)

Coronado bridge to Naval Base San Diego. I can identify the various classes of naval ships of World War II and describe their purpose and function. But modern naval vessels are a mystery to me, slab-sided, opaque, lacking obvious armament. But we did get to see a couple of helicopter aircraft carriers, a supply ship described as the Costco of the sea, a littoral combat ship (tri-hull, angular, loaded with stealthy attributes) and the Sea Slice, an experimental ship built by Lockheed which seems to be available for purchase.

Sea Slice - experimental littoral ship

Sea Slice – experimental littoral ship

Back on shore, we made a quick visit to Tuna Harbor Park. This little park is directly south of the Midway Museum. It attracted my attention because of the giant sculpture of the kiss – that famous photo of the sailor and nurse kissing on V. E. day. It’s called “Unconditional Surrender”. Also in the park is a set of statues – Bob Hope and an audience of fifteen life-sized bronze sculptures. Pretty cool.

After this, we piled back into the car and headed to Coronado Island

The Kiss

The Kiss

for lunch. We made our way to the Brigantine Seafood restaurant, across the street from the Hotel del Coronado. I couldn’t decide which fish to eat and ended up with their Steakhouse Burger – Grass fed California beef, smoked wild boar bacon, tomatoes, chopped lettuce, blue cheese, caramelized onions, white truffle-black pepper aioli. Yes, it’s wrong to have a burger at a good seafood place, but so it goes.

Next we headed to Point Loma and the Cabrillo National Monument. Ideally, we’d be there during low tide and wander through the tidal pools searching for sea urchins and starfish. The tides weren’t right, the parking lot was full, and my mom wouldn’t have been able to make it down to the water anyway.

So we went to the visitors center, enjoyed the view of the harbor and city to the east and the

Bob Hope entertains the troops

Bob Hope entertains the troops

ocean to the west. The folks watched a short film about whales while Genae and I went to the lighthouse. There, we found a docent, or perhaps not actually a docent but someone dressed in period garb, knowledgeable in the lighthouse and its times. We had a nice little chat. His character wasn’t the lighthouse operator IMG_1611sbut a newspaperman.

I asked if he felt isolated there. “Look around you – there are lots of people!” He told us that in 1887, many folks would visit the lighthouse on Saturdays and Sundays, make a day of it. I asked if the water catchment basin provided a sufficient supply and he described the effort required to bring water from the nearest spring. Next I asked if he was a Cleveland man or Harrison man. He enjoyed the question, being in actuality not a newspaperman from 1887 but a former fifth grade history teacher.

We left the lighthouse and wandered along the paths. Past the old WW II gun emplacements, to the ocean overlooks decorated with a whale’s spine and kelp, to a nice view of the new Point Loma lighthouse. On the way back to the visitor center we stopped at a small blockhouse holding exhibits of the shore defenses – a 155mm artillery shell, a cross-section of the howitzer’s barrel showing the rifling, binoculars and telescopes used for spotting.

Old Point Loma Lighthouse

Old Point Loma Lighthouse

By now we’d managed to wear out my parents. We dropped them off at their motel and returned to ours. We’re in Old Town, so after a short rest we took a walk and looked for an interesting Mexican restaurant. We found ourselves at Café Coyote. I had enchiladas – one beef and one guacamole. I’d never heard of a guacamole enchilada before. Like the dinner in general, it was okay but nothing to write home about. That’s the thing about Mexican restaurants – it’s pretty easy to find average food but above average is fairly rare.

After dinner we walked up and down the streets of Old Town. Lots of Mexican restaurants, a few bars, a number of stores selling trinkets and souvenirs of the area. Kitschy stuff we’d never buy, but didn’t mind browsing.

San Diego, day 1

Back in December it was obvious I wouldn’t be flying USAir before my miles would expire at the end of February, so we needed to use them or lose them. We considered all the big west coast cities and picked Seattle until we realized the only flight we had enough points for was an overnighter. So we went with Plan B: San Diego. My parents like to go there so we suggested they meet us there. And we timed the weather perfectly, missing a big winter storm at home.

Friday

Up at 5:30 and out of the house a few minutes before six. Bad traffic on I-270 cost us twenty minutes, but we arrived at the gate only a few minutes behind my target time, no worries. Our first flight was DEN to PHX. There were two youth soccer teams aboard and the flight was noisy. Not because the kids were loud, but because the two chaperones in the row behind us were the loudest people on the plane.

We had a short layover before our flight to LAX. Not long enough to grab a meal, but enough to grab a snack. This was a quick flight, about an hour gate to gate. We were out at the waiting area for the rental car shuttles a few minutes after noon. We watched patiently as Hertz, Avis, Enterprise shuttles went by. Waited more – Alamo, Fox, Budget. I asked one of the drivers what color van Economy Rent-A-Car uses. Never saw one. I got the phone out and searched for Economy. Panicked a bit when the nearest one according to Google was 38 minutes away. Went to the info desk where they gave us a phone number and told us to take the parking shuttle to lot C and call for the shuttle there.

I wasn’t sure why Economy didn’t run shuttles to the airport like all the others. They’re on Century Blvd like most of the others, and they’ll drop us at the terminal when we return, so why not pick up customers there as well?

So we were running a bit later than hoped. The plan was to meet a friend at the In-N-Out in Costa Mesa at something like 1:30. By then we were getting fairly hungry: skipped breakfast, had a snack at about eleven, and it was actually 2:30 for us rather than 1:30 because of the time change.

We had told my folks it would take us a couple hours to get down to San Diego. We didn’t account for lunch, and we certainly didn’t account for southern California traffic. After lunch we followed the smart phone’s navigation instructions which put us on a toll road. Because we didn’t opt for the express pass for the rental car, we decided it best to avoid the toll road. So we turned around intending to take the 405 south but, typical for the area, that was not an option. We ended up making a u-turn in front of the In-N-Out after driving eight or ten miles.

So we finally arrived at the hotel in Old Town a bit after five. We called my folks, found our way to their motel, and from there to the Bali Hai restaurant. This is a Hawaiian themed seafood place on Shelter Island. Our table had a beautiful view of the harbor, the San Diego skyline brightly lit, mirrored in the water. I had the braised swordfish (with grilled orange, forbidden rice, and black pepper sauce). It was delicious. And all the waiters were dressed like me!

The Rental Car

The car this trip is new to me, a Chrysler 200. I found much of its operation alien. No gear selector in the console, must be on the tree. What I thought was a skinny shift lever was instead a fat windshield wiper control. I didn’t so much put it in drive as turn on the wipers and spray the washer fluid. The gear selector is a knob. As is common now, there’s a fob with no key. Keep the fob in your pocket, press the brake, push the button and the car starts. I found it unnatural to pocket the fob. I’ve driven cars for forty years and I’ve always had a key and I’ve never changed gears with a knob.

It spends quite a bit of time shifting. It’s a nine speed automatic. You’re in third by the time you hit 15 or 18, sixth at 40. This is just cruising around; I didn’t put my foot to the floor the entire four days. Quite often the shifts were pretty harsh. The brakes were good, but kind of touchy.

The back seat passengers hit their heads every time they got in the car, even when warned “watch your head!” I’m a bit too tall for the car. With the seat all the way back, the pedals were too close. This made for more fatigue on longer drives. There was no manual in the glove box and never figured out many any of the controls. Managed to mute the radio but never could turn it off. How long before I tell kids to get off my lawn?

It’s a nice car, seemingly well built (this one was brand new), and has nice lines. When I was picking everybody up once, a couple of guys said they thought it was sharp. I’m sure it would be a wonderful car for folks who only cart short people around.

Cars and Hiking

Not only was Saturday the first Saturday of the month, it was forecast to be a gorgeous day. I decided it was time for the first hike of the season, so I planned for my umpteenth hike to Emerald Lake. Being the first Saturday, it was also time for Cars & Coffee in Lafayette. As Emerald Lake is a short hike, that left me plenty of time to check out the cars before heading to the Park.

Kent showed up this time in his new BMW i8. It’s a beautiful car and drew quite a crowd. IMG_1455s IMG_1458s

For some time I’ve considered taking the Chrysler instead of the Lotus. That’s sort of a joke, but only sort of. I still think they’re one of the better looking cars produced in the last few decades. But mine is starting to look rough around the edges. The clear coat is starting to peel off one of the repairs. But not a bad looking car for going on 16 years old.

Just after Kent rolled in with the i8, I saw a 300M show up. His is a 2000 (mine’s a 1999). He’s entered it into a number of shows and won some awards. He takes real pride of ownership, in spite of telling me he’s had all sorts of problems with it. As mine is finally starting to exhibit problems other than cosmetic, we chatted a bit about possible solutions to my undiagnosed problems. I may have to see if he’s willing to give me an assist on my repairs. Anyway, it was good to see the 300M represented.

As for the hike, not much to tell. I’ve done that hike dozens of time. Saturday, the wind was fierce at the lake. I was prepared to shoot a time lapse, but it was just too windy to sit there for any length of time. I made my way back to Nymph Lake for my picnic. The Park was quite crowded. From Nymph to Dream, I take the “winter route” while most take the summer route. There is one place where I can see hikers on that trail from below. There were about thirty people in a line, all within arms length of each other.

In spite of the crowds and the wind, it was good to get back on the trail after a few months off.