California Dreamin' Part 2

The Sight-Seeing:

After the wedding, I stayed several days to take in San Diego's offerings. I must say that I am completely bewitched!! It is the most amazing place. The first night I experienced Mission Beach and Pacific Beach with Todd, Kim, Cary and Michelle (friends that I met several years ago through Karen). We had a great time walking on the beach at sunset and talking over gelato.

But as the Go-Go's say: "Vacation, all I ever wanted. Vacation, had to get away. Vacation, meant to be spent alone."

And so, I spent the next three days exploring the city alone. I stayed in this funky European-style hotel in the Little Italy section of San Diego. It was a great location and it met my needs perfectly.

It wouldn't be the ideal hotel for everyone. The rooms are teeny tiny! The double bed pretty much took up all the space. The hotel does not have air conditioning -- but that was fine in early June because it stayed pretty cool. And as a solo traveler, I thought the hotel added to the overall adventurous vibe I was going for.

Day One:

I started early and hit the road heading North along the coast. My first stop was La Jolla Cove. WOW. The views were amazing.

I wasn't the only one enjoying the amazing scenery. I had a Zoolander-experience as I stumbled upon a male-model photo shoot. Hilariously fantastic:
I drove up the coast through Del Mar, Solana Beach, Cardiff-by-the-Sea, and finally on to Encinitas. It was completely serendipitous that one of my very favorite bands, Switchfoot, happened to be having their Bro-Am charity event the weekend I was in San Diego! The Switchfoot Bro-Am is an annual surfing competition and concert on Moonlight Beach. It was awesome! I sat on the beach for hours and watched the band and other surfers compete.

I saw a few of the other bands at the free concert, but I really only cared about Switchfoot. As usual, they were awesome. (This makes my 4th Switchfoot concert in the last 15 months.)

It was a pretty amazing concert venue. Check out the view:

After the day at the beach I drove down to Coronado for some quick sight-seeing. It was very, very pretty and worth the terrifying drive over the extremely high bridge you have to take to get there.

I ended the day back in Little Italy, with a delicious dinner outside a restaurant close to my hotel.

It was pretty much an ideal day.

The only bad thing was my atrocious sunburn. It is with humility and self-deprecation that I post the following photos. I took a picture without makeup on so you would be able to most fully appreciate the distinct demarcations of where my sunglasses sat on my face.

And look at the exact line caused by my Capri pants:

Day Two:
Not to be dissuaded by sunburn or exhaustion, I set out on day two to conquer the San Diego Zoo.
With the theme from Three's Company running through my head the entire time, I walked every path of the mammoth park. It is a great zoo. My favorite exhibits included the panda bears, gorillas, monkeys, and the grizzly bears who were very active and splashing around in their pond. I also had several sightings of the baffling high-heeled female:
My feet were KILLING me after hours of walking through the zoo. I cannot imagine wearing these wooden high heels. Insane!
After the zoo, I drove around Balboa Park and then drove up the coast again. My first stop was Sunset Cliffs in Ocean Beach. Another amazing spot.
I took the scenic route and drove back up to La Jolla to drive around some neighborhoods. I couldn't get enough of the beautiful beaches and felt compelled to see as many of them as possible despite the fact that gas ranged from $4.55-$4.79 in So Cal. My fill-up was quite pricey.



I ended the day back in San Diego in Seaport Village where I had dinner outside overlooking the ocean.


Day Three:
On my final day in San Diego, I drove to the Cabrillo National Monument on Point Loma. It was incredibly beautiful and I was sad that I only had about an hour and a half to spend there. I really liked seeing all of the sea life in the tidal pools on the rocky beaches. It was fascinating and I could have spent a much longer time exploring that area. The Cabrillo monument and museum was also interesting. And I love lighthouses, so I enjoyed the Old Point Loma Lighthouse.Okay, this post is quite long, but I had to give a semi-detailed description of my amazing San Diego adventure. If you were bored by these vacation pictures, then you definitely don't want to click here to see even more pictures from my trip.