April 22, San Diego

San Diego

Getting to downtown San Diego using public transportation proved to be very easy. Five dollars gets you a full day pass. A five minute walk to a bus stop, a five minute ride and a transfer to a fast train took us to the Gaslamp Quarter. This district consists primarily of restaurants and small shops. We walked around for about thirty minutes and stumbled upon our favorite ways to see a city; a hop on, hop on bus. The tour was narrated by a very entertaining driver. The bus made twelve different stops around the city and we were free to get off and on at any of those stops all day. We certainly saw a lot of San  Diego and put a lot of miles on our sneakers...Old Town, Little Italy, the Seaport, Coronado Island (with some fabulous beaches), Balboa Park and the Embarcadero (Spanish for fort).

San Diego has a great climate. The average temperature is around 70 degrees. The best thing is that it does not vary much. Unfortunately it has been a bit cool of late...cool being in the high 60's. They get very little rain, 10 inches per year if they are lucky. The Colorado River supplies their water.

San Diego was only developed by the Spanish when they felt threatened by of all people, the Russians! San Diego is a navy town where both the Marine Corps and the Navy Seals are trained. Interestingly enough, the Marine Corps training base is just for men but the General in charge of the base is a woman. There are some big ships in the harbor, including the Midway, an enormous aircraft carrier that is now a museum.

We sat in a coffee shop for a long break before heading to Petco Park for a great ball game between the Padres and the Phillies. The park is fairly new and is extremely well laid out. The concourse is wide with concession stands, washrooms and friendly staff everywhere. Cheap tickets are a mere $10 and so it is a very affordable park. They even give a senior discount to those over 60. We were two of over 33,000 in attendance who chose good seats. The Phillies won...2-0.

We found our way back to our RV park using public transportation and a cab. The KOA Park is gated and so we had to use a security code to get in as it was late....but cool to see the gate slide open after punching in a few numbers. After 13 hours in San Diego we were ready for sleep. Tomorrow was going to be Tijuana day but we are rethinking it as the cab driver told us that the waits to come back to the US are very long...up to four hours! We will see what the morning brings.


Sent from my iPad...sure wish I could share some pictures.