Thursday, January
16th 2014
(Aren't we just going bananas?)
Quiet and slow morning in San Diego, classy city in
California. So far we have been really happy with the city and our
experience. Some things were smaller and geared really heavily
towards tourists so they were much quicker visits than anticipated
(Old Town, Gas Lamp Quarter). Still, it is warm, sunny, clean,
lively, and so pleasant (especially in winter). Drive north on I-5 (a
bit busy) to visit a botanical garden (we have reciprocity from
Phoenix Desert Garden). Parked. Walked around and enjoyed the site.
Visible ocean. Bamboo forest. Fruits (lemons, citrus, bananas). We
were walking through the grove of banana trees with bananas on them!
All kinds of plants. Lizards. Waterfall. Garden for children. It was
green. A lot of blooming plants. It was awesome. Down to the ocean.
Beach. Lunch. Drive along the coast, some smaller towns, busy roads –
nothing special (it is getting hard to impress us).
Torrey
Pines State Reserve, http://www.torreypine.org/,
hilly wilderness by the coast. We drove up hill and parked there.
Many people was walking up along the road. There were some hiking
loops so we walked to one of the view points. It was nice, there was
ocean, hills, trees and brushes, but it was nothing really
spectacular. Overrated. It happens quite often – there is something
you really have to do or see and than ….. overrated. Very pleasant
walk with nice views. Too many people. J. walked back on the beach
and I went back to the car and drove down to the parking lot.
Interstate drive to Ocean Beach. Another thing to do, their Antique
district. We found main street, walked down to the beach. Way too
many homeless and alternative type people. It was not so packed but
it felt a bit like mix of LA skid row and Venice Beach. Three or four
blocks of businesses. Even it was called antique district there were
no antique stores on one side of the street. There were few on the
other side. Other then that: overrated. It looked like the street was
in transition from small town beach street to commercial tourist trap
with almost no character. Hard to say. As I was waiting for J. in
front of one of the stores I saw two hippie couples with big
backpacks. As I saw them walking I saw something strange, the first
couple had on the top of their backpacks cats. One backpack = one
cat. Just sitting there and looking around. Oh well … Motel. J.
went to wander around Old town and I had to do some school stuff.
Another day in sunny California.
