San Diego, California

Following the trusted driving directions from our source in Morro Bay, we left Desert Hot Springs and took less travelled highway,s 79 and 76 and had a pleasant drive to South Carlsbad State Park. The campground is situated on bluffs just above the ocean. There is a high surf most days this time of year and there are dozens of surfers below us. The campground is fenced but there are gates allowing local joggers,bikes, and surfers to enter the camp. There is a steady stream of traffic of all sorts, all day…but it is great listening to the loud surf at night. We saw some spectacular sunsets while staying here.

Balboa Park and Old Town

A friend of Chris’ offered several excellent suggestions on where to visit in San Diego without spending a fortune so we had a general itinerary for the few days we had available. We drove five minutes to the nearby train station to go into San Diego for each day. They have a commuter train system called “The Coaster” that runs several times a day starting from Oceanside to central San Diego. The cost is $11 return each and a 45 minute comfortable train ride took us to the Old Town Station, where we then took city buses to Balboa Park. The park is centrally located and consists of 16+ museums, numerous gardens, live theatres (including a replica of the Globe theatre), the world famous San Diego Zoo and so much more. We joined a walking tour available only on Tuesday and got a good history and architectural lesson of the park. All the buildings are spanish renaissance style. The Botanical Garden building is one of the world’s largest wood lath structures built in 1915 – very impressive and unique.

Back at Old Town we toured the oldest city in California where many of the old buildings have been well preserved and offer free entrance. We ate al-fresco at a Mexican restaurant – early dinner of chicken Mole which was very good, and a refreshing Margarita. Yummm…..