San Diego Splash Down
Today was a full day in San Diego, although trying to twist Meg’s arm to let me go on Stars and Stripes this moring, unfortunately, no dice.
We started with a seal tour on the bay. These were a lot like the duck tours we did in Boston last year. These vehicles were a lot less authentic, but had the same abilities. It’s evident from the local attactions that the military sure do put a lot of money into the economy. About 14 billion so the tour guide said. 148,000 service men and women in the local area with another 250,000 dependents.
After the 1.5 hour tour filled with jokes these guys have clearly used many times before, we headed off to the gas lamp district. A few blocks along Meg found a frozen yoghurt shop and had to indulge. Then another block on I found the Ghirardelli shop. Back in 2004 we enjoyed a huge chocolate sundae in San Francisco made from thick fudge from Ghirardelli. Time to try it once again. Meg wasn’t too full so she indulged shared in her second dessert.
We then decided to walk to Balboa Park. The park overlooks the city and it was a fair hike and in hindsight we probably should have used a cab or a bus. Lucky Meg had her GPS with her so we were able to get accurate directions. Once in the park we were amazed at the number of brides, limos and hang-oners. As it was a Saturday, the markets were in full swing along with quite a few buskers.
We decided to walk back to the hotel. Again GPS to the rescue and the walk was all down hill which felt much better. Low landing aircraft broke up the walk which ended with a fly-by from a F/A-18 Hornet. There is a navy air station across the bay afterall. We quickly got changed to head to old town again. This was the third night for Mexican. It seemed like such a waste to have anything but Mexican. There are plenty of pizza places in Little Italy and almost as many steak places scattered across the city but nothing like the Mexican food in old town. There really isn’t a chance to get any bad Maxican in old town. We had another great meal and Meg had another margarita the 5th in 4 days but this time she wasn’t asked for I.D. Meg has been asked for I.D. several times on this trip. In Long Beach the waitress had to check with the manager that the I.D. was acceptable. After all, Meg had a fake Australian accent and could only support it with other friends with Australian accents.
This concluded our stay. Tomorrow we are off to Fresno and Yosemite National Park.