San Diego Getaway

Todd and I went to San Diego over Labor Day weekend. This was my first time and Todd's second. We got into San Diego on Friday evening by plane. I don't know if any of y'all have flown into the San Diego airport, but it was pretty cool. I've never been so close to buildings while in the air. From the plane we had an awesome view of the city! Once we got to the hotel we dropped off our stuff and headed over to hang out with the John & Frances Malley. They were there for the Ann Marie and Alex's wedding as well. A side note about our hotel .... the Porto Vista looked super modern and hip on the outside and main lobby. As soon as you get out of the elevator it was a whole different story. It looked like crap, it was basically a motel. The center was completely open and we had a nice view of the parking garage while walking to our room. The room was a little odd to me too - I think its just because the whole motel thing. Inside the room was nice with a huge picture of 2 women on the wall. I think these women were the theme of the hotel for some reason, I have no idea why though. Unfortunately I have no one to blame but myself for the hotel.

Saturday morning Todd went to move our car (to avoid getting a ticket) and came across a local farmers market. He brought back some pita bread, hummus, and a salmon burger. They were all delicious! Once I finally got moving, we left our hotel and walked down to the port area. This weekend was actually the Festival of Sail so there were all kinds of boats on the water. I guess that might be pretty normal for the weekend, but I honestly have no idea. Either way there were tons of boats in the water. There happened to be one sailing that reminded me of a small pirate ship. It even shot cannon balls which was pretty cool. After we watched all the boats for a little bit we walked on over to meet the Malley's at Kansas City Barbeque. This place is pretty famous because this is where the bar scenes of Top Gun were filmed. Apparently the original Kansas City Barbeque was burnt down so really isn't where they filmed Top Gun. But by eating there you'd think it was the original. They have all kinds of memorabilia. I will say that I wasn't really impressed with the BBQ, I think it would have been sufficient to just go there and have a beer. Too late now though. As we were walking back to our hotel after lunch we came across a blocked off street that was acting as a street stick ball tournament. I was pretty amused by that and it reminded me of some of the Auburn Christian Student Center. We finally made it back to the hotel and relaxed until it was time to get ready for the wedding.

Ann Marie & Alex's wedding was on the North Island Naval Base on Coronado Island. They had the sun shining and the beach as the background. Ann Marie looked beautiful!! We had a great time at the reception, the food was great and Todd actually cut a rug on the dance floor with me! We had so much fun that we took a taxi home! Another unfortunate thing for me is that I don't have a single picture of Todd and I from the wedding.

It was very hard for us to get moving on Sunday. Once motivated we walked down to the Coronado Island Ferry. We hitched a ride over to the island, walked to base, walked on base, and walked to our car (on base). I think we ended walking over 5 miles just to get to our car. While we were on base we went to Coronado Beach. The water was freezing which we expected. Todd did some body surfing, but I would only go in up to my ankles. It was just too cold for me!!! After only spending about an hour at the beach we left and went back to the hotel. As if 5 miles wasn't enough exercise we decided to go for a run. We drove to Balboa Park by taking the roads that seemed as if they were straight up and down. The scariest one was Laurel St. It probably wouldn't be so bad if we weren't in a little Volkswagen Bug. Although I don't think I would have been a fan of it in any car going up or down. Anyways, we ran both in and around the park for a total of 3.6 miles. Once back at the hotel we made reservations for dinner, turns out they were booked until 9pm. Our dinner was at The Oceanaire and even though it was really late, it was well worth it!! The food was incredible!! Todd ordered an appetizer of steamed clams. This was my first time to ever try them and you know what ... I liked them. Who would have thought!?! For dinner Todd had some kind of spicy fish something that he said was great. My dinner was the Maple Glazed Wild B.C. Steelhead. It included a cast iron skilled country croutons, caramelized California peaches, and a blackberry gastrique. I obviously just looked the menu up online, there is no way I would be able to remember all that or really understand what it means. The only thing that really matters is the whole thing was awesome!!! We ordered a side of mash potatoes to complete the meal. For dessert, it was a strawberry mint ice cream with chocolate cake covered in something that they set on fire. It smelt like roasting marshmallows. Its a shame I was so full that I couldn't eat it all. I would definitely recommend this place to anyone!

We spent all day Monday at the San Diego Zoo. We got there around 930am which wasn't as early as we were hoping, but turned out to be plenty early. Once we got there we were standing around the ticket office wondering about admission price. As luck would have it we didn't even have to pay! We knew Todd could get in free, but before we even had the chance to go to the ticket office a guy came up to Todd said he had a pass and could get 2 people in for free. He was supposed to be meeting some friends, but they weren't going to make it and offered to let us in on his pass. We made sure to tell the guy thank you many many times and then we were off our on way to see the zoo. We saw absolutely everything at the zoo, well unless you consider the Reptile House something to see. I didn't want anything to do with that part of the zoo. I had my Nike+ iPod run tracker thing with us to see how much we were walking. By lunch I think we had already walked about 3.5 miles. My iPOD ran out of batteries so I'm not sure what our final mileage was, although I'm guessing around 8 miles. We were done looking at everything around 3pm so we decided to go back and looked at a couple of animals again (pandas, lions, and orangutans). Some of my favorites were the pandas, hippos, some of the monkeys, and the gorillas. There were 4 gorillas - baby, 2 medium, and one that looked older. Shortly after we got there the baby gorilla went over to a shut door and would bend over and try to peak to see whats behind the door. He/she kept doing it and then one of the medium size gorillas came over and did the same thing. Next thing you know they are all going crazy for the feeding time. The 2 medium size ones were the funniest - one would hold his hands up in the air while on his back legs. I'm sure if he could speak he would say "Hey over here, throw me some food!!!!". The littlest one thought he would be sneaky by stealing from the biggest one and running away. One thing that I didn't realize until the zoo was that Mountain Lions are HUGE!!!!! I always thought they were smaller - turns out they aren't. I was scared of them before, but now I'm really scared of them. Not only do they stalk their prey they can also jump 30 feet. They are easily the biggest cats next to lions and tigers. I liked it better when I was ignorant of how big these beasts really are.

After the zoo Todd and I went to a local brewery - Karl Strauss. We each had the beer sampler. They had some pretty good beers. We ended up getting a growler of their red beer and taking it back to the hotel with us for dinner. For dinner we went to Filippi's Pizza Grotto. We didn't really know anything about it except that the day that we went for a run in Balboa park we drove past the restaurant and it had a huge line out the door. We figured if people were willing to wait in a line that long it must be good food. Turns out it was just as delicious as I expected it to be.

Tuesday was our last day in San Diego. Before we left we went for a run that Todd mapped out. We started running from the hotel, ran up the huge hills to Balboa park, ran through the park, by the space museum, over a bridge, by a high school, down to the Gas Lamp district and kinda back to the hotel. By me saying kinda back to the hotel I mean we got lost. It was only supposed to be 4.5 miles, we finally quit at 5.5 miles only because we didn't know where we were. I think I could have easily run at least another mile or two due to the only 27ft above sea level.

To end our trip we made a food stop at In-n-Out Burger. Delicious! Like my sister said, you can't make a trip out there and not eat there.

For some reason I can't seem to get pictures up on this post. I've tried a couple of times to add pictures to this post and it won't let me. Maybe I'm doing something wrong, who knows. I'll add some pictures when I can figure out what I'm doing wrong.