For those readers who may not be familiar with the history of this area, San Diego was originally a part of the Spanish Empire, having been "discovered" in 1542 by Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo. Cabrillo claimed the bay for the Spanish Empire and named the site 'San Miguel'. In 1602, Sebastián Vizcaíno was sent to map the California coast. He arrived aboard his flagship San Diego, surveyed the harbor and what are now Mission Bay and Point Loma, and named the area for the Catholic Saint Didacus, a Spaniard more commonly known as San Diego de Alcalá. When Mexico gained it's independence from Spain in 1821 San Diego was a part of the Mexican State of Alta. In 1848 the State of Alta, including San Diego of course, was ceded to the United States as part of the settlement of the Mexican-American War.
Today San Diego is the second largest city in California and the eighth largest city in the United States, with a population of over 1.3 million. There are over 3 million people living in the metropolitan area, which encompasses all of San Diego county.
Sunday, February 12th, we woke up to wet grounds. It had rained on and off all night and everything around us was wet. This was the first real wet weather we have had in weeks and it was kind of refreshing. Especially since we have had the toppers fixed so we don’t have to worry so much about water intrusion into the coach. We decided that today was going to be an “at home” day. I spent most of the afternoon cleaning out the space under our bed. We have a very large storage space there which has become a bit of a collector’s corner. It was time to get rid of a bunch of stuff we didn’t need or haven’t used in a while. I ended up loading the back seat with stuff to be donated and probably dropped our weight by a couple hundred pounds. I also got the blog chapter covering the last couple weeks posted and did some other administrative things.
About 5:30 Jackie’s brother Dennis, who lives here in San Diego, came over for a visit. We generally only see him once a year when we come down here, although Jackie talks to him every couple days on the phone. We had a very nice visit and watched the east coast feed of the Grammy Awards Show together. We all like, and know quite a bit about, music, so we had a good time. About 9:00 he left and we spent the rest of the evening watching TV.
We learned a lot about Dennis’s new professional activities working for a real estate investment group. He goes out to find new investors for their company, Blue Sky Capital, which is then used to buy foreclosed residential properties here in the San Diego area. The properties are then fixed up and resold at a profit. Sounds like he is doing quite well for himself and his investors and we were happy to hear he was doing good.
Monday, February 13th, it was still cool and cloudy when we woke up. After lunch we went out to do some geocaching in the Pacific Beach area, just west of the RV park. We first
made a quick stop at the Goodwill store to drop off all the stuff I cleaned out of the bedroom the other day. It took a couple of hours to get six new geocache finds, mostly because they were spread out and parking can be hard in this area. About 3:30 we decided to quit caching and get our shopping done so we went to the local Walmart store. One of the things I did was get my first new prescriptions filled under my Medicare drug supplement. I had to mail new prescriptions to my new mail order pharmacy, and I needed to fill 30 day prescriptions to tide me over until the new ones come in the mail. After Walmart we had to stop at Von’s because there are no local super Walmart stores. I guess the folks in San Diego don’t want Wally World competing head to head in the grocery business. We then went back to the coach for the rest of the night. It sprinkled on and off all day and the weather forecast says it will be this way for the rest of the week. Boo! We came here for sun, not rain!
Tuesday, February 14th, Happy Valentine’s Day and also Happy Birthday to my granddaughter Courtney Valentine Fitzgerald. We decided to celebrate Valentine’s by going out to lunch at a restaurant that we found yesterday while we were geocaching in nearby Pacific Beach. It was a Greek restaurant called Café Athena and one of the caches that we found was right in front of the place. It is in a strip mall and looked like a very nice place. We had picked up a menu and found several items that looked pretty good. Jackie loves Greek food and I can usually find something even though I am not fond of lamb.
We found that the food and service at this place was wonderful. We had a calamari appetizer and then I had a sirloin wrap that was excellent. Large chunks of grilled, rare and very tender sirloin along with lettuce, tomatoes, onions, some spices and a light oil dressing. Jackie had a wrap with egg plant and lamb that she said was also very good. I can give this place an excellent recommendation. It is the Café Athena and is located about a mile west of Interstate 5 on Garnett Avenue in Pacific Beach. You may have to use a GPS as it is hard to see from the street, hiding behind a large Chinese place. The address is 1846 Garnett. They have a web site, www.cafeathena.com where you can get a menu.
After lunch we set out to do some more caching and ended up just north in La Jolla. We were again only able to get six caches in a couple of hours because of traffic and parking issues. We also had two new DNFs, both on caches that have not been found in several months and may very well not be there any more. One interesting thing
we found is the Mount Soledad Veteran’s Memorial. Mount Soledad is one of the highest peaks in the San Diego area and is where a lot of the TV stations have antennas. On the highest peak there is a park and a huge white cross. When we drove up to the top we found that the cross was surrounded by granite walls with information on San Diego area veteran’s inscribed. Most included photos etched into the plaque as well. It was a very moving tribute to our veterans and as many times as I have been to San Diego I had no idea it was there. Another great side find from our caching hobby. About 3:30 Jackie decided it was too cold and windy so we headed back to the coach for the rest of the night.Wednesday, February 15th, we left the RV park after lunch and headed north on Interstate 5 for San Marcos. San Marcos is a community in what is known to San Diegans as “North County” and is where Jackie’s mom lived for many years. Jackie and I used to drive down there from Indio frequently to visit her and Jackie’s brother Dennis who live there as well. We were headed to San Marcos because that is where the nearest Camping World camping specialty store is located. We wanted to get some particular folding tables that we knew could only be found at Camping World.
We got into San Marcos around 1:00 or so and did some geocaching before going to the store. We managed to get six new caches in an hour or so of caching and then it started to rain. Since caching in the rain is not particularly pleasant, we stopped and went to the store. By the time we got out of Camping World it was pouring down rain. We started south on Interstate 15 back towards San Diego and for a while it was raining so hard it was difficult to see. Californians, being the fearless folks they are,
didn’t slow down though. Everyone was still zipping by at five over the speed limit. Once we got into San Diego proper the rain had slackened and by the time we got to Costco, near our RV park, it was nearly stopped. We spent an hour or so in Costco stocking up and then went back to the coach for the rest of the evening. Smokey the Cat cannot resist a box and took up temporary residence in one of the boxes from Costco when we put it on his chair.Thursday, February 16th, we woke up to clear skies, although it was in the forties early in the morning. We decided to go out caching again, this time a little closer to home, so after lunch we went to an area just a few miles to the north and east, near Montgomery Field, a small airfield for private planes. It was built in 1937 and is operated by the City of San Diego as a public airfield. It is only a few miles south of the Mirimar Marine Corps Air Station, so pilots have to share the local airspace with warplanes from the base. One famous incident tied to Montgomery Field occurred in September 1978 when a single engine Cessna took off on a training flight to do a practice Instrument Landing System approach to San Diego’s commercial airport, Lindbergh field. The Cessna flew into the landing pattern for the airport for it’s practice approach without contacting the tower or any other aircraft in the area. The Cessna was overtaken and hit by a Boeing 727 from PSA airlines which was also on approach to Lindbergh and both aircraft crashed, killing all on board. I clearly remember this incident because of the famous photo of PSA Flight 182 going down in flames over San Diego. This photo made the cover of Time Magazine. In addition
to the 135 on the airliner and the two on the Cessna seven people on the ground were killed when the 727 crashed into a residential neighborhood. Twenty two homes on the ground were destroyed in the crash. This crash prompted the Federal Aviation Administration to create Terminal Control Areas (TSA) around all major commercial airports in the country. These TSA provide positive airspace control in the area surrounding the airport in order to prevent these types of midair collisions. We spent a couple of hours caching in the area just south of Montgomery Field and managed to find ten new caches. We also ended up with one DNF. After caching we went to a couple of stores and then home for the rest of the evening.
Friday, February 17th, another nice morning. By the time we left the coach, just after noon, the temperatures were close to 70 degrees and we didn’t even have to put on jackets. Yea! We did some more caching up in the area of Montgomery Field and ended up getting another ten new finds, along with two DNFs. Several of the caches were quite ingenious, including one that was a hollowed piece of wood with a film canister stuck in it. We like finding the difficult ones like that. Several of our finds were rated three out of five on the difficulty scale. After caching we hit a Dollar Tree to buy some more little blue plastic policemen. I like to leave them in caches, assuming there is room, as our contribution to the bling that goes in caches. I can get 48 in a bag for a buck and I bought five bags. That will keep me in policemen for a while. After that we headed back to the coach for the rest of the night.
Saturday, February 18th, we awoke to a clear day with a strong, cool wind coming out of the north. We had decided a few days ago that today was going to be a stay at home day. After lunch we did our laundry right here at the park. This park has a very nice, large laundry facility and it is only steps from our coach. We also did a few small chores around the house, but not too much. It was a very relaxing day. Late in the afternoon I even went over to the hot tub, also close to the coach, for a half hour soak. Very nice.
Sunday, February 19th, we had a pretty full day. The weather was nice, although still a little cool. We had lunch at the coach and then about 2:00 or so we left and drove to downtown San Diego to do some caching and to visit Horton Plaza, the big mall which is right on Broadway in downtown. We did two virtual caches, caches with no physical container, first. One was a flagpole in Balboa Park put up by the Masonic Order back during WW-I and the other was at the San Diego Fire Department headquarters building downtown. We then tried to do a couple of regular caches and just had all kinds of problems. The ones in the heart of downtown were impossible to pin down because the tall buildings threw off the GPS readings. The ones around the edges we couldn’t find parking for and ended up just giving up on caching downtown. Parking is unbelievable anywhere near downtown or along the waterfront. Every available space was taken, even on a Sunday when no one was working downtown. There are so many condos and apartments in the area that parking is a super premium.
After our caching efforts we went into Horton Plaza and parked. Besides liking malls in general, the reason we came to Horton Plaza is that we had tickets to the Mad House Comedy Club, which is located on the top floor of the mall. About a month ago or so we had free Showtime on our Direct TV for a weekend. Among the things we recorded was an hour standup comedy special by a comedian named Sebastian Maniscalo. We had never heard of the guy, but we found him to be hysterically funny. A week or so later I was looking at Sebastian’s website and lo and behold, he was appearing in San Diego during the time we were going to be there. I immediately got on line and bought tickets for the show.
We got into Horton Plaza a little after three and the club was not scheduled to open until 6:30, so we had some time to kill. We wandered around the mall window shopping for a while until Jackie’s brother Dennis met us. She had told him we were going to the mall and he doesn’t live too far away so he said he would meet us there. We shopped with him for a while and then went for a little walk across the street to the U.S. Grant Hotel. The hotel was built just after the turn of the century and had, like many urban hotels, fallen into some disrepair and hard times. A few years ago one of the local Indian tribes, the Sycuan, used some of their casino revenues and bought the hotel and did a top to bottom remodel. Dennis told us that the irony was, the land the hotel sits on was originally Sycuan land, not reservation land, just trust land. When the hotel was built they sold the land. Now they own the whole kit and caboodle again. We walked through the lobby, had some lemonade, and sat and chatted for while. The remodel of the hotel was quite impressive and it appears to be a five star property now.
After a little while we went back to the mall where Dennis went on his way. We got in the car and left the parking lot because they only give you three hours of comp parking for shopping in the mall and then they charge $2 for every 15 minutes thereafter, with no top limit. One can run up a pretty good parking bill at those rates. We drove around downtown for about 15 minutes and then went back into the parking structure and started over. We did a little more shopping and then just before 6:30 went up to the comedy club and got in line, actually, started the line. We were first at the door. They didn’t open the door until about 6:45, but we finally got in and got seated in the second row, good seats. The club was very nice, open and modern looking, not the dreary or industrial look you sometimes get in comedy clubs.
The club has a full restaurant and a wine and beer bar, so we ordered some drinks and dinner. Jackie had a hamburger, which she said was good, but nothing spectacular. I had one of their specialty sandwiches, a grilled cheese with crabmeat. It was outstanding. They serve it with a cup of tomato soup, which was also quite good, and the full combination was very nice. The show started a little after 8:00 and there were three comics on the bill. The first, the opener, was a younger guy whose name I didn’t catch. He was pretty funny, but you could tell he wasn’t at the point where he was real confident. He did about ten minutes of material.
The second guy, the featured comic, was Eric Knowles. He did about a half hour and was very funny, headliner material as far as I was concerned. He was a former Marine and even did some really funny stuff about his time in the Corps. He brought on Sebastian, who was the Headliner act. He did a full hour of material and was just as hysterical as he was on the Showtime special. He is a very visual comic, lots of movements, gestures and facial expressions, and he has great control over his voice. The full package is a very, very funny act. We recognized a few bits, and parts of bits, from the TV show, but I would say ninety percent of what we saw tonight was stuff that was not on the TV show. We were very happy to have had the opportunity to see him in person. He even singled us out in one bit about marriage as the “old married couple” in the audience. We were close enough for him to see us. He caught Jackie off guard when he leaned over and asked her how long we had been together and when she tried to say something a few seconds later he told her, “never mind, we’re not a team act.” Pretty funny comeback.After the show we got the car out of the parking lot, again for free because the club gives four hours of free parking, and drove home. A mile or so from the RV park I spotted an old van parked on a dark street and actually turned around and went back. Jackie hadn’t spotted it because she was looking at her phone at the time.
It was an old white van that had all kinds of crap glued to the sides and a huge model of Cinderella’s castle on the top. There were also a Minnie and Mickey glued to the back doors. One of the oddest things we have ever seen. We managed to get a picture of most of it. After that we went home and into bed. We were out until 11:00 p.m. which is very unusual for us.Monday, February 20th, Happy Presidents Day. Nope, Happy Washington’s Birthday, but not on Washington’s birthday. Leave it to Washington (DC, not the man) to screw things up. There is no Presidents Day. The 1968 Unified Monday Holiday Act decrees that the third Monday of February is celebrated as Washington’s Birthday. I remember as a young kid in Arizona when the State celebrated both Lincoln’s and Washington’s birthdays, ON their actual birthdays. Now, with the new Monday mandate the geniuses in DC managed to declare a holiday as a day that can never, mathematically, actually fall on Washington’s real birthday. Go figure.
Anyway, the day was clear and cool, as most of the days down here have been so far, so we decided to go out and do some holiday caching. Even though Washington’s Birthday/Presidents day is a Federal holiday many everyday folks and businesses don’t take the day off. Nonetheless, we brought up a bunch of caches in an area of nearby Mira Mesa that was mostly business parks and commercial properties. We left the coach about 12:30 and by 3:30 we had managed to get 20 new finds for the day, along with a DNF or two. About half of the office buildings did appear to be pretty empty and we have found that in these business parks with the huge office buildings scattered around, that there usually weren’t a lot of “muggles” out and about anyway. They are all inside working. After caching we made a quick stop at Wally World and then headed home for the rest of the night.
Tuesday, February 21st, Happy Fat Tuesday. Of course, Fat Tuesday, better known as Mardi Gras, is usually associated with New Orleans, but it tends to be celebrated most anywhere there is a party atmosphere. San Diego is no exception. San Diego has an area between the downtown business district and the bay called The Gaslamp District. In most places it would be called Old Town, but San Diego has one of those too, located further north, where the Spanish explorers settled. The Gaslamp is more the 19th century center of town, an area that was “downtown” in the 1800's and has now been restored as an entertainment district. There are dozens of bars, clubs and restaurants in a ten or so block area and it is very popular. Tonight they are having their “Mardi Gras in San Diego” celebration, with music and dancing and a parade. We had planned to try to go, but then we learned that they wanted $25 a person for tickets and we decided we didn’t want to have that much fun.
Fat Tuesday has it’s roots in the Christian Church where it is the last day before Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent, when one is supposed to behave. During Lent, which continues to Easter Sunday, the faithful are supposed to commit to fasting or giving up certain types of luxury as a form of penitence. So basically, Fat Tuesday is the last day to party until Easter.
We decided to go out after lunch for some more San Diego geocaching. This time we centered our efforts on the Mission Valley area of town. Mission valley is generally along Interstate 8 from the beach to about five miles inland and is an area many hotels and shopping areas. We picked this area because parking would probably be easier than in the more residential areas or downtown. We managed to get ten new finds in the course of a couple hours of searching with no new DNFs. After caching we went back home for the rest of the night.
Wednesday, February 22nd, we left the RV park about 11:00 and drove north on I-5 to the city of Carlsbad for lunch. We had lunch at a place called BJ’s Brew House, located just off the freeway, across the street from the Carlsbad Outlet Mall. We were meeting an acquaintance, Michael Reminger, for lunch and he had suggested this restaurant when we mentioned we were coming up to Carlsbad. Michael is a financial consultant and an acquaintance of Jackie’s brother Dennis. He had been working with us on some financial matters over the last couple years and we wanted to buy him lunch since we were going to be in the area. The food at BJ’s was pretty good, nothing outstanding, but OK, if a little pricey. We had a nice lunch and a nice chat with Michael.
After lunch we did some geocaching right in the Carlsbad area, managing to get ten new finds in the course of a couple of hours. Several of them were right off the beach, including one that was actually in the Carlsbad State Beach Campground. This was actually the first time we had been on, or even close, to the beach since we got to
San Diego nearly two weeks ago. The weather was great, warm with a slight breeze off the ocean. After our caching we spent an hour or so in the outlet mall doing some shopping. Jackie got a new pair of shoes and I got a couple of nice shirts at a steal of a price. After that we got back on the interstate and headed south to the coach, where we stayed in the rest of the evening.Thursday, February 23rd, we had another very nice morning with the promise of a warm, San Diego day. We decided to do one last day of caching here in San Diego before we leave on Saturday. We especially wanted to get to the milestone of 3,600 finds before we left and we only needed six to get to that mark. We left the coach after lunch and went to an area east of downtown, along El Cajon Boulevard, coincidentally a neighborhood known as “The Boulevard.” Our very first cache was supposed to be an easy find, a small container hidden in one of the crevasses of a sign in front of a strip mall. The base of the sign was made up of stacked flagstone, which left lots of cracks and crevasses to look into. Shortly after we started looking a security guard came up and asked what we were doing. He was suspicious, but not nasty about it. Jackie was explaining geocaching to him - he had no clue - and after a minute I chimed in and tried to help. Then his supervisor came up, and he didn’t know about it either, and then the representative of the property management company came up and she was in the dark too. We really wanted to find the container so we could show them what we were looking for, unfortunately, we couldn’t and ended up taking a DNF for the find. The people we were talking to asked us to post something for the owner about the fact that this was private property and they didn’t want people (like us) poking around looking for things on their property. Not the first time we have had to explain caching to security guards or cops, and probably won’t be the last.
Moving on we started to have better luck and managed to get ten new finds in the course of a couple hours. Of course, one of the them was our number 3,600 so we took a picture. Yea! We also garnered one additional DNF, making two for the day. Oh well,
keeps us humble. After finding our ten caches we went to a coffee house in the nearby University District and had a cup of coffee with Jackie’s brother Dennis. He came down just to spend a little time with us since we were leaving in a couple of days. About 5:00 we headed back to the RV park and stayed in for the rest of the night.Friday, February 24th, we elected to stay at the coach for the day, getting some cleaning done and getting ready to leave San Diego tomorrow for Indio. I spent some time getting all the decorations and other outside stuff taken down and packed away. After lunch we did our laundry again since the park’s laundry facility is so handy. Later in the afternoon I spent some time in the hot tub just relaxing. Jackie got the inside of the coach cleaned and vacuumed, so we are all ready to go.
Saturday, February 25th, a travel day. We are leaving San Diego and driving 160 miles to the northeast to Indio. We left San Diego right at 10:00 and the trip was pretty much uneventful. Traffic was fairly light, as we hoped, and there were no major problems. We arrived at the Indian Waters RV Resort about 1:15 and got parked in our spot shortly thereafter. I spent an hour or so getting set up, putting up the sun screens and putting out some decorations. After we got set up we made a quick run to Walmart for some supplies and then just relaxed around the coach the rest of the evening.
This will put the close to this chapter of our story. We will be here in Indio for ten days before moving on to Arizona. Until we meet again, enjoy today. Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. Today is a gift. That’s why we call it the present. Bye bye.
