The Diego

Monday was nuestro dia en San Diego.

After figuring out our plans for the funeral, Cristy and I drove down to San Diego on Sunday evening. We arrived late to the La Qunita in Old Town(e?) San Diego only to discover that it was completely lousy. It was the first genuinely bad hotel that we have stayed at, and was also the most expensive. Swindled!

Monday morning we abandoned our room and took a circuitous route to Fashion Valley (which is hopefully just a marketing name) because Cristy needed formal clothing for the trip to Arkansas. I say circuitous because we actually turned the wrong way on Friars Avenue and ended up at Jack Murphy Stadium – former home of the Padres, sight of Willie Mays’ 500^th homerun (I think), and home to a lot of Raiders fans once every fall. We stopped for lunch at this chain called Pat and Oscar’s (which was pretty good) before making it to the Fashion Valley Mall.

The mall was real nice. We started by going to The Container Store which is a great chain nowhere near Nashville. After Cristy got what she needed, we stopped for a smoothie at D’lush. This is the sort of smoothie place where Paris Hilton might go. All pink, all this ‘style’ – just terrible.

We then adopted the role of turistas and headed through downtown San Diego and across Coronado Bridge to the town of Coronado and its famous hotel. The hotel was impressive – I think they said it’s the largest wooden structure in the United States. And it has survived 150 years on the edge of the Pacific Ocean. Pretty cool.

We went down to the beach and dipped our toes in the 50 degree water before settling on the sand for an hour or so (that's the picture at the top). There were all these pelicans that would cruise twenty feet above the water’s surface and then dive like they’d been shot. We watched dozens of them doing their dive bomber routine over and over. As we stayed out there, it became increasingly overcast and cold, forcing us to turn in.

On the way back, we stopped at a Coronado Starbucks to figure out where we would eat dinner and listen to some of the Vandy Michigan game. We heard Meingasner’s hit to tie it in the 8^th before leaving (and only later hearing about Vandy’s loss in the 10^th). As James might say, they needed us.

For dinner we went to the Old Town Mexican Restaraunt in Old Town San Diego. It was great – took a while to get seated and eat, but the carnitas were delicious. I had to restrain Cristy from requesting a song of the traveling mariachis, though…

After that, we drove north and spent the night at a nice hotel right next to LAX Airport. Our flight to Memphis left at 7:00 AM, and after a couple days there, we returned on Thursday to continue the trip…