San Diego, California

San Diego was a wonderful choice for the final leg of Adam's parents' jam-packed ten day journey with us.  Lynne and Geoff had booked into a nice hotel for their final three nights before their flight back to the UK.  We drove through San Diego downtown to drop them off at their hotel on the harbourside, receiving the same funny looks as we always do from passers-by when driving through a city centre in Winnie.

The closest RV park we could find to their hotel was in the Mission Bay area about seven miles away.  We arrived just in time to watch the sunset on Mission Bay which was beautiful.  The RV park had fairly good transport links to the Old Town, albeit a mile walk to the bus stop - trainers on!

We arranged to meet up the next day in the Old Town San Diego Historic State Park.  The State Park has attempted to recreate the Old Town as it existed during the Mexican and early American periods, from its settlement in 1821, through 1872 when it lost its dominant position to Downtown San Diego.  It is a beautiful quaint area of town full of restaurants, shops, museums and historic buildings, houses and beautiful gardens.  Lynne and I took the opportunity to do some obligatory girlie shopping, browsing the clothes and trinket stores, much to the disdain of the men in our company.  Jewelry, sombrero's and leather cowboy clothing all had to be investigated extensively, as did the colourful scarves, poncho tops and tribal dresses.

Adam surprised me by doing a bit of shopping for once.  Even after failing to negotiate any discount off a nice leather wallet, he made the purchase anyway.  Although exactly what he needs a new wallet for I don't know.... any money he owns is usually tucked away safely in my purse!

Next, we headed to a Mexican restaurant in the Old town to refuel; you can imagine how Adam's eyes lit up when he spotted the ridiculously large beer glasses in the window.  No need to further debate where we should eat!  Well after all that splashing out on a new wallet I think he really needed a drink. I was actually surprised when he only ordered a half yard of ale.  I had to ask him if he was OK or feeling ill or something - far too reserved for him especially when a full yard was available.  It was only lunchtime, I suppose. 

Lynne and Geoff had managed to acquire two free day tickets for the trolley tour by heroically enduring a few hours of a timeshare type sales presentation. Naturally they were only really interested in the free tickets, so politely turned down the million pound apartments - a bit hasty don't you think!  We bought two more tickets between us all for the highly recommended San Diego Trolley Tour.

Unfortunately we got off to a bit of a bad start with our first tour trolley driver.  The four of us took the few remaining seats on the back seats of the open sided trolley.  It was a beautiful day so no problem with a bit of fresh air coming in, at least until he set off down the freeway at 60 miles per hour!  The whole point of the tour was that it was guided and narrated by the driver, but none of us could hear a word he was saying due the 60mph winds taking our breath away and generally whipping us in the face.

As the trolley came to a halt at a set of traffic lights, I took the initiative and opportunity to stand up to unhook and release the plastic weather sheet to save us all from the battering of the wind.  Suddenly, the driver turned around to look straight at me, announcing over his microphone (which was now working loud and clear with the vehicle stationary): "You need to leave that alone, it's very expensive!".

The other passengers all turned around also to see what expensive item I was tampering with. Yes, that's it, it's just a cheap looking plastic window.  By then, I had actually already managed to unhook it without causing any "expensive" tears or rips, but he still ordered me to put it back as it was.  All attempts to explain that we couldn't hear anything due to the wind was met with equal curt arrogance, offering no further explanation as to why I was breaking the rules.  There was certainly no mention of it being due to any concerns for my health or safety within the vehicle or anything similar.  He simply barked that his microphone was turned up fully and that we should be able to hear just fine, which we could when we weren't hurtling down the highway.  At this point I had pretty much lost interest in anything he had to say, especially his awful jokes and terrible attempts at singing.  Adam was fuming and did a magnificent job of showing the driver up to be the rude idiot that he was.  Although sadly some of his best sarcasm was lost in translation.

We got off the trolley soon after, all looking a little more disheveled than when we got on!  We accidentally disembarked one stop sooner than we had originally intended, but there was no way we were hailing the same bus driver to let us get back on!  Anyhow, this gave us the opportunity to explore much of the length of the affluent island resort city of Coronado.

Coronado lies on a peninsular connected to the mainland by a ten mile strip of sand.  We walked about ten blocks across the island past pristine luxury houses and streets, enjoying the warm sunshine on our backs.  "The Village", as the locals refer to it, is the center of Coronado with numerous prestigious restaurants and shops.  We were pretty thirsty after after our unanticipated stroll and our unexpected run-in on the trolley. Somehow by luck we found ourselves in a sunny beer garden waiting for cocktails, so the day was redeemed from there on in!

That evening we headed back out to the Old Town Historic State Park to the Hacienda De Las Rosas - a wine and beer tasting shop...yes more drinking!  I had read quite a few slightly negative reviews of some of their white and red wines, but the beers sounded generally OK, and the price and atmosphere promised to made up for the negatives.  With this information I braved the wine tasting, whilst everyone else went for beer.

After my first sniff and sip of wine I could confirm that they had definitely made the right decision!  Dishwater and vinegar comes to mind. I never realized it was possible to get wine SO wrong, and I am really no connoisseur!  The only wine I enjoyed was a warm Christmas mulled wine which they called their Sangria.  The generous samples of beer were washed down easily, so I gathered help from Adam to help with my wine - being the gentleman that he is he happily obliged.  Despite the sour aftertaste of my vino, the hour we spent in the warm and friendly atmosphere was very pleasant and enjoyable, and the beers received very positive reviews from the others.

The next day we all met up on Mission Boulevard near Mission Beach outside a bicycle hire shop.  We went into the shop with our discount vouchers and picked up two bikes for Lynne and Geoff.  A bright pink one for Lynne, and a black one for Geoff (he was, of course, disappointed he couldn't have a matching pink one...).  Suddenly, as Lynne starts rolling off down the street, she notices that the handle bars are a bit wider and different than a normal bike, not to mention there's no brake levers on the handle bars!  Back into the shop we all go to find out what kind of death machines had been palmed off onto us. I know we got a discount, but surely brakes are a fairly critical component?

They are apparently called cruiser bikes, and you simply have to pedal backwards to stop - simple as that!  Well, I'm certainly glad I didn't have to ride one.  In less than 10 minutes, with only a few squeals from Lynne, they both soon got the hang of it and started showing off!

The weather wasn't the best that day, with a few light showers here and there, but that did not deter us one bit from cycling all the way around Mission Bay.  I'm not sure exactly how many miles it was because we did a bit of extra exploring too, but it was probably over 10 miles around and more like 16 miles by the time we got back to the RV park.  It was a lot of fun though and we saw some superb beach front houses as well as an old and slightly shabby part of town.

After a few hours of recuperation and resting our achy legs, we met up again for a final farewell meal at a Mexican restaurant in the Old Town.  We had scoped it out the previous evening when we did our wine tasting.  It looked so inviting, with outside dining around several real flame patio heaters and the promise of a live Mexican band.  We were not disappointed - the food was fantastic and the drinks flowed freely once again; just as they always do with the Williams's!  My mother-in-law to be is probably a bad influence, which is just a fine match for my family.  As the evening came to a close, we said our slightly tearful goodbyes at the bus station as we said "Adios" for another 5 months.  But all in all very happy times ;)

We only really saw a very small portion of the city in the two full days that we had, but what we saw we absolutely loved. I didn't really have any expectations, high or otherwise of San Diego, but it is definitely somewhere we would love to go back to.  We spent a couple more days there being pikey staying for free in a public car park yards away from the RV park which we had previously just stayed at for $50 or more a night.

Happily, we also spent my birthday in San Diego.  Breakfast started off well as you can see, with pain-au-chocolat with dark chocolate dip, fresh fruit and bubbles!  Later Adam treated me to a day at a local health club resort with spa and massage -  which was lush!