San Diego, CA
Scott had an International Association of Identification (aka Fingerprinting/CSI) conference in San Diego the last week of school so the kids and I flew down after school was out to join him. We had an tiny (500 square foot) AirBnB right on Mission Beach, just steps away from the bay’s calm waters. And although I was sick the first two days , and we learned that the locals refer to this time of year as Gray May and June Gloom, we had a great time enjoying the cloudy and cool mornings as a reprieve from the already hot Las Vegas summer.
At the beginning of the week, Scott drove the truck packed with all our ‘necessities,’ two of which were the kids’ scooters and the electric bikes. The boardwalk along the bay was perfect for scooting each morning while soaking in the scenery. We also took the electric bikes around the entire bay! I think it was about 13 miles of coastline filled with wetlands, parks, beaches, and endless places to recreate. Once I felt better, the kids and I paddle boarded around the bay. Ella was even brave enough to stand up with me.
What trip to San Diego isn’t complete without a trip to the world famous San Diego Zoo? We took the kids to the zoo during covid, when Miles wasn’t even one yet, so we expected this time to be much better. We realized, however, the kids were more interested in ice cream than the animals and this was perhaps a little karma for me.
As a kid my parents took me on adventure after adventure where my biggest concern was whether the hotel we were staying at had a pool or even better, a pool with a slide. My parents also had to drag two grumpy kids out of bed to start the day at a reasonable time, 9:00am. Fortunately (or unfortunately) our kids still wake up bright and early (6:00am) to start the day. Scott and I still thought the animals were so cool…especially our gorilla relatives.
Although I grew up around lakes, I didn’t have the tide pools that oceans provide to explore. This is something that Scott enjoyed growing up and I’ve learned to appreciate so we drove to Point Loma tide pools and tried to find as many sea creatures as we could. Although we didn’t find any sea stars, we saw lots of crabs and a dead lobster. The ocean views and giant waves crashing on the rocky shore was also impressive.
We spent our last afternoon (hoping for the sun to come out) at the ocean side of Mission Bay. And although the sun never found its way through the clouds, we still enjoyed running from the waves. Even Miles, who is hesitant of most things at first, was ‘hi-ya’ing (karate chopping) the waves as he ran from them.
San Diego has so much to offer that even though we’ve visited the area three times in the last five years, we have so much more to do: Sea World, Torrey Pines, and exploring the naval ships in the harbor just to name a few. Needless to say, we will be back.