San Diego 2008 Long Weekend

Tuesday Feb. 12, 2008.  After ruling out Kansas City and Springfield, Il.  as possible destinations because of the weather and looking for a warm place to go, I searched the internet.  South Texas was too expensive, so was Arizona, but wait;  whats this low fare to San Diego?  Then I find that its my wife's favorite destination.  That settles it we're going.

Friday, Feb 15, 2008  We leave Tulsa at 3:00 and fly non-stop to San Diego. Express Jet is not the fanciest airline but for this weekend its cheaper and non stop to boot. Great flight and we get to San Diego before 4:30 pacific time.   We get out of the airport in minutes and are soon at the car rental, proud renters of a new Chevy Cobalt.   Hey this is a cheap trip it will do.  And then on to our hotel , the Super-8 thats been under reconstruction for at least a year.  Thats okay too.  I don't mind walking through exposed wires and dryer vents blowing on you as you walk around blind corners in the dark.  This place is not expensive and besides if we wanted a nice hotel to stay in all day, we'd stay home.  We spend most all our time doing something and the first thing we do is go to Hodad's for hamburgers.  We order hamburgers big and small, and onion rings, and soft drinks, and 2 malts.  We (of course) wind up with too much food, but its so good.  After walking around Ocean beach and a chilly walk on the beach itself its back to the hotel to end a long day.

Saturday,  Feb 16, 2008    Today will be busy.  We get up early enjoy our danishes and coffee and juice and since its only 8 and the zoo doesn't open until 9 , we go to the harbor.  We've already toured all the ships at the maritime museum but its fun just to walk down walkway and look at them and the cruise ship and the restaurant and then walk back watching plane after plane come right down through the middle of town to land.   We get to the Zoo plenty early and get a running start on the day.  We form a game plan on how to see the most animals in the least time with a minimum of back tracking.  Its fun but after 3 solid hours I begin to tire. The Zoo is great and the warm weather allows you to see many animals that are semi hibernating elsewhere. We eat a quick and expensive meal and then ride the tram across to see the polar bears, then back and ride the bus tour.  This we saved til last when we were tired.  We saw two shows, the sea lion show and the wild animal show.  All in all it was a great day at the zoo.  It was 3 o'clock and in a blink we were in Old Town touring the Whaley House.  We didn't do this last time and if it hadn't been on TV a lot I probably wouldn't have done it this time.  At least now we can say we saw it.   After touring the plaza it was time to eat at     Phil's Barbecue one of the top rated eateries in San Diego.  Everything was great and we had just the right amount of food.  We left sated and there wasn't one bite left.  There's still time left to go to Horton Plaza and tour the mall.  We ate some Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream (in preparation for this summers trip) and looked around several of the many shops.  It's 9 p.m. and we've seen a lot of things this day. 

Sunday,  Feb 17, 2008   Somewhere I saw an advertisement for Julian Ca. an old mining town.  We got up early and were on the road before 8 .  It was over an hour to get there but we got to see some beautiful mountain scenery and a lot of snow on the roadside as we climbed from sea level to 4200 ft.  The town is worth the trip and we think there's a law that you have to eat at least one piece of apple pie at one of the seemingly hundreds of pie shops.  We had apple, cherry,and strawberry- rhubarb pie with ice cream.   It was delicious and filling but the show must go on.  We wish we had more time to stay here, but the boys want to go to the beach and we're going to eat at the Dumpling Inn before we go.  I've got to say that our Garmin really made this trip a lot easier.  In Julian I just put in the address for the Dumpling Inn and it took us out of town a different way and an hour later we were enjoying some wonderful Oriental food.  Man those dumplings were great.  Wish I could eat there more often.  Then on to Ocean Beach.  The boys,11 and 12 still revel in digging in the sand and Kathy and I walked at least 3/4 a mile down the beach before returning to find one of them covered to the head in sand.  At this time  Kathy's eye starts really bothering her.  She left her eye solution at home and was trying to get by with a substitute and she was in horrible pain.  While we waited on her to either get better or worse our window of oppotunity to see the Midway closed.  She said she could go but by the time we got there, there was only an hour left, not enough time.  We tried to go to Seaport Village, but it was such a beautiful pre holiday Sunday there was no parking anywhere.  The eye gets worse, so using the cell phone we get an over the phone consultation and the address of a mediquick somewhere in the city.  Thanks to the Garmin Street Pilot we're there in under 15 minutes and after an hour we find she only has a painfully scratched eyelid.  The lidocaine helps even if we can't find a pharmacy to fill the prescriptions.  We have one more meal to eat and Fillipis Pizza Grotto gets a return visit.  The food is great but theres just too much of it.  Connor wants to box it up and take it to the homeless guy down on Harbor Drive.  I've got to appreciate the sentiment.  Nothing left to do now but go back to the hotel and start getting everything together;  we leave early in the morning.

Monday,  Feb. 18  2008     We get everything loaded and return the rental car.  After a quick shuttle to the airport; we settle in to wait for our plane.  We make conversation with a woman who surprisingly has a brother in law that we know and lives in our zip code. Small world.  The plane ride back is uneventful and our quickly planned trip is over.  But we'll have warm memories of San Diego to last us until the (hopefully) next time.