Trip to San Diego
Lauren and I took an extended weekend trip out to San Diego to visit out friend (and my fraternity brother) Brandon last weekend. Neither of us had ever been there before, so it was a great opportunity for her to visit California for the first time as well as visit one of our friends.
The trip out took 6 hours and crossed a wide variety of terrains. We drove through everything from arid cactus-inhabited desert, fertile irrigated farmland, sand dune infested desert, to tall 4000 foot mountains. On the trip out, we saw running water in the ground for the first time in, literally, months; granted it was irrigation canals, but it’s still running water none-the-less.
Upon arrival in San Diego, we met up with Brandon, one of my other fraternity brothers, Manan, and one of Brandon’s girl friends and had dinner at Fred’s Mexican Cafe Restaurant down in South Beach. That place definitely had some great food and drinks. One margarita, a few taquitos, and lots of conversation into the evening, we decided to move on to Sinbad Cafe and hookah bar just down the street for some more catching-up time. Double apple tobacco with ice and syrup add-ons was the center-piece of the evening and led the conversation for close to two hours. The rest of the evening was spent hanging out at Manan’s new place and then again at Brandon’s condo.
The next day, we went out to breakfast at The Mission, a trendy little place with excellent food and a decent atmosphere. Following the morning nosh, Brandon took Lauren and I to see where he works at NASSCO and to see Coronado Island. Brandon works as a buyer for them and orders parts for the tankers and ships that they produce.
Coronado Island is home to some of the smallest million dollar homes (I guess the old saying about ‘location, location, location’ really holds true there since it’s amazingly beautiful on the island) I’ve ever seen as well as one of the largest wooden structures in the world. We went to the beach just past the Hotel Coronado and Lauren got to see the Pacific Ocean for the first time in her life (and brought home the shells to prove it).
The next stop was the recently-opened floating museum of the USS Midway. Similar to the USS Intrepid found in NYC, the Midway has been cleaned up and put on display with a myriad of planes and sections of the boat opened for visitors to see. The top deck was littered with everything from Tomcats, to Hornets, to Ospreys, to Sea Knights, to Phantoms. The main airplane storage and maintenance deck had some of the older airplanes on display; including an SNJ trainer. The Midway was definitely a must-see stop in San Diego for all those who enjoy large boats, airplanes, and old military hardware.
After the USS Midway, we went back to Brandon’s condo to hang out and figure out what we’d do for the rest of the day. We ended up touring La Jolla and Del Mar, the parts of San Diego where Brandon grew up, and saw, from one of the mountains next to the ocean (also filled with million dollar homes), the Pacific at dusk and could see out to much of the city. We also got to see Brandon’s parent’s house in Del Mar and ended up having dinner at their favorite restaurant 5 minutes from their house with Brandon’s roommates and some of his friends. After returning back to Brandon’s condo after dinner, we enjoyed a rousing game of Trivial Pursuit.
On Sunday, we got up and went to Ruby’s for breakfast and then a quick trip to Ikea for our new coffee table before leaving for Tucson. It was a great weekend and we both enjoyed visiting Brandon and will have to make more trips back to San Diego to see all that we didn’t have time to see.
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