San Diego is a place I have always wanted to visit and it being Brad's first time to the west coast, we felt we should all go together! We booked an Airbnb for 2 nights and headed to a list of adventures awaiting us!
On our way down, we stopped at Torrey Pines State Park for a little hiking. We parked across the street and parking was $10 if I remember correctly. It is a small walk from there, but if you're lucky enough to park on the street, go for it! It did seem like people had a hard time backing out of there when leaving so just be mindful of that.
I had a couple hikes in mind, but after realizing where we had to park, it was over a mile hike to the hikes I had in mind. I am not sure if they block off the road for hikers, but it is a paved street, all up hill, to get to the hikes. This might be temporary or only on weekends. I am not sure! Anyway, we jumped on the first few hikes we saw and were very pleased at the beautiful scenery we hiked to. The first hike was the North Grove Guy Fleming Trail. It was roughly 1 mile long and flat so I would rate it as easy.
After that we headed to Parry Grove Trail which is a 0.6 mile loop. You can make it longer as there are a few trails off of this that take you down to the bluff overlooks which are similar to the North Grove Guy Fleming Trail.
Then we headed to the High Point trail which is only 100 yards and a very quick stop!
After this we headed back down to the car while watching people jump into the water and sun bathe on the beach. Our next stop was food in La Jolla! We put a brewery into the GPS and were sad to find out that it was closed for good. Thankfully there was a cute place next door named Bernini's Bistro. They were just setting up to open and it was perfect for us! We ordered some Brussel sprouts to start... I gave up bread for lent this year and the bread at this place everyone said was phenomenal...
Following here we headed over to La Jolla Cove and it was pup season for the seals!! We parked on the street and walked since there was not much parking on a Sunday evening. After looking at the map, I realized we went to Children's Pool La Jolla, not actually La Jolla Cove, but either way it was great! You can see in one of the pictures below, a mother seal nursing her pup.
We stayed long enough to watch the sunset and watch a seal give birth!!
It was really amazing, until the seagulls were fighting over the embryo and placenta... gross.
We went to the Pacific Beach Pier to check it out... but people are not allowed on it to our surprise. The area around here is adorable though. There are tons of places to eat and drink. We all said we would like to check out La Jolla for a night sometime!
After that we headed to our Airbnb to drop off the truck. We ordered an Uber and headed to Ballast Point Brewing Company. They have a few locations and we went to the location in Little Italy.
The next day was our full day in San Diego. We headed to Balboa Park and walked to the West Bean Coffee Roasters for breakfast.
We walked back to Balboa Park to enjoy our food and watch the boys play with the squirrels nearby.
When I visited Aaron in Florida while I was traveling in Cape Cod (blog post of Sarasota Vacay link here:https://kyakel.wixsite.com/adventureswithkara/post/sarasota-vacay) we rode scooters in Tampa along the river and it was so much fun. Aaron and I have been wanting to do it again and at Belmont Park they have a ton of scooters to ride around! My original thoughts were we would walk the park, but the scooters made it much more fun!!
We rode past the Plaza De Panama Fountain and The San Diego Museum of Art...
...and the Spreckels of Organ Pavilion...
..and we rode over to Inspiration Point...
Next we went to The Desert Garden and it was beautiful. It reminded Aaron and I of Lake Havasu!
Then we rode next to the San Diego Zoo and saw these beautiful bushes shaped like elephants!
Then we ended up at the Spanish Village Art Center. It was so colorful!
Then the Bea Evenson Fountain...
Then a little trip back past the Museum of Us..
We did one last ride before parking the scooters!
We had so much fun on these scooters. We were ridding around for about an hour and a half and it was about $40 per person... worth it! After this we headed to Belmont Park.
Once we got there we saw little bikes we could rent.
After they kept stalling on the boardwalk, we realized that you are not supposed to take them on the boardwalk. So, we began walking to the break wall!
Once we got to the break wall, we took a few pictures and headed back.
Then we got food at Draft South Mission. The menu was limited to mostly tacos, but they were all great! As were the beers.
Then we headed to Cabrillo National Monument. This does close at 5pm!! Do not plan to watch the sunset from here. We checked out the Old Point Loma Lighthouse which was built in the 1850's.
Down by the water is the New Point Loma Lighthouse.
Then we checked out some of the beautiful views.
We realized we were on a time crunch and the men working there allowed us to check out the Cabrillo Statue as they were closing.
We then watched the sunset at Sunset Cliffs.
I highly recommend watching the sunset here! Parking can be difficult, but we managed and on a Monday there were not many people. That evening we got ready to head to Gaslamp Quarter! This is known for its lively night life, so naturally we had to check it out.
We were dropped off by our Uber driver and we walked up and down 5th Ave to see where to go. We heard a woman singing and headed to Whiskey Red's where we realized there was karaoke!
After that we walked down to the Gaslamp Quarter sign!
We finished the night at Cafe Sevilla of San Diego where a gentleman was playing guitar. We ordered drinks and Brussel sprouts!!
After that we headed home and played cards while we listened to music.
The next day our original plan was to hike Potato Chip Rock. We all were not feeling our best and woke up late. Once we got food we looked up how far the hike was and realized that it was an hour from there and it would make the drive home 2.5hr from there. We decided no to the hike and enjoyed our breakfast we ordered at Spill the Beans located in Seaport Village.
It was fun listening to Aaron name all of the helicopters flying overhead as we ate!
After this we drove as much of Route 1 as we could heading back to LA. Route 1 does not start until Dana Point so we tried to stay along the water as much as possible while heading back. There are a ton of cute beach towns to drive through and we saw Camp Pendleton where Aaron was stationed while in the Marines!
We did take a pit stop in Laguna Beach!
We ate at a little place we saw on the water in Laguna Beach called C'est La Vie. We would not recommend this place. It is located on the water, but the food and service was not very good. We walked around after and enjoyed the rest of the drive back to Woodland Hills.
San Diego was a lot of fun. Less traffic, good weather, and great company!
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