Last weekend, I visited San Diego with the JBuddy (@rabbd). I guess I’ve been once, but that was for a few hours for dinner and walking at Belmont Park back in 2008. After this experience, those few hours pretty much don’t count anymore 😉
After landing, we found a little park thing right across the street from the airport that we were able to walk around and catch our first glimpse at a pretty sweet harbor view while we waited for the bus. Now, I haven’t been to *too* many airports to know whether or not this is a normal thing, but having a place like this to just walk across the street to was quite a treat for me.
For that Friday night, we chose to stay in a hostel just a bus ride away so we could jump right into San Diego things on Saturday, then high tail it to Carlsbad to spend time with my auntie and uncle. It was great to see them and spend some time with em! They made perfectly lovely hosts (Rusty, too!) Thank you!!!
Transportation was super easy and reasonably priced via bus, trolley and train! We walked a lot, too, but I have zero issue with that..yay!
Point Loma Hostel
The only other hostels I’ve been to were different places throughout Europe. Maybe it was the summer heat and mosquitoes in Italy that has me biased, but the one in Point Loma was awesomely clean, super adorable, staff and volunteers were involved and it had a full kitchen for guest use. And DIY pancakes for breakfast. You guessed it! Mine had an excess amount of chocolate chips 😀
I love hostels because of the total diversity of the other guests. Anyone you talk to is most likely from some distant place, doing some crazy thing and have awesome stories. Conversations over spaghetti dinner, once again, had me itching to run off and visit every possible place I can. The prospect of travel always feels so out of reach, but when I think about it, I realize I have been to quite a few places. Many of them earlier this year. Perhaps now I’ve realized that my visits aren’t at the depth that I’d like them to be.
Stone Brewing World Bistro and Gardens at Liberty Station
On Friday night, we walked down to Stone. It was located in one of the restored barracks buildings at Liberty Station.
It was a lot larger than I expected, and there were so many hidden areas and wings that you don’t see at first. I love that 🙂
But Liberty Station was just awesome to walk around! They were beautifully renovated, but it still had the unified feel to it. There were large grassy areas, too. It was nearly 11pm and the sprinklers were on. Warm, San Diego weather…sprinklers. You bet we ran through a bunch of them!
There was also a building for the Commander! That night, I was Commander Mew Shepard so it was only appropriate that I take a photo.
It was a pretty neat place to see and I wish I had more time (and light) to wander more
Petco Park
I like baseball. I also really like that baseball stadiums have those little unique things about them. I’d always seen the Western Metal Supply Co. building seating area when the Giants played down in San Diego.
Without knowing anything else about the park, we wandered over to see if there was a tour or something that would allow us to see the inside of the park. Turns out, that wasn’t even necessary! There’s a little area that’s open each day called Park at the Park where, on non-game days, you can just wander on up to the back fence of the park, no ticket required! There are some seats and even sand over there! It had a perfect view of the Western Metal Supply Co. portion. And look, there’s meee!
Of course we also visited Tony Gywnn Plaza and took some fun photos with the statue.
Coronado / Star Park / beach!!
Coronado appeared very well-kept and upscale. Easily million-dollar homes. BUT THEY WERE SO PRETTY!!! The shops around were the same. It felt quaint, except new at the same time.
Star Park was actually a stumble as we were walking from a bus stop to the beach by the Hotel del Coronado. The park itself was surrounded by a circular street, Star Park Circle, and it had a few streets branching off. Yep, like a star. See it on Google Maps.
At its center was a star with a flagpole and plaques for each branch of the U.S. Military. That was really great to see 🙂
Only later, I had found that L. Frank Baum, author of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz had lived on Star Park Circle!
Distracted by heat and the prospect of jumping in the ocean, we kinda skipped The Del and headed straight for the water! It’d been a good while since I splashed around in the ocean, and it was just as fun as I remember. It wasn’t as warm as I was expecting, but it was definitely do-able (obviously). We could have been more post-water prepared, but it was warm enough that being a little wet didn’t really matter in any way other than my skirt having a giant wet spot on the butt for a few hours 😉
Birch Aquarium at Scripps (UCSD)
Now, the only other aquariums I’ve been to are the Monterey Bay Aquarium in Monterey and the Steinhart Aquarium at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco.
In comparison, Birch Aquarium was pretty small, but it had all kinds of fun things like a giant octopus and lots of seahorses. There were leopard sharks! I love leopard sharks. (And San Jose Sharks) Though it wasn’t a leopard shark, I was rescued from a shark that day, as depicted here. My hero *Insert emoji smiley with heart eyes* (haha)
The cafe located right outside was surprisingly really good and the view out the back of the aquarium was just stunning! This photo doesn’t do it as much justice as I’d like it to.
Since it was the first full weekend of the month, admission was free by showing our Bank of America cards. It was still worth way more than free! More info on the BofA Museums on Us program. Unfortunately, the Museum of Photographic Arts was closed for renovation during our visit. That was my top choice of the three, but you can’t beat free, even if it’s your second choice!
Carlsbad Village
I just have to say that Carlsbad Village area is extremely adorable and a great place to wander around!! Coyote Bar & Grill pretty much had live music at the three times we wandered past it.
The village area is a ~10 minute walk to the beach, too. We watched the sunset here and it was soooo gorgeous! We only played in the water a little before dinner time. By this time, the trip was in its wind-down mode and I can’t think of a more relaxing place to spend that outside time.
