More San Diego

Sunset view from the balcony above us

Grim weather aside, we went to Knott's Soak City on Monday (Labor Day) it was a bit expensive for what it was but it was fun all the same. We only lasted a few hours though as I just got so chilly in between rides it was beginning taking the enjoyment out of it! If we'd gone on a day like yesterday it'd have been perfect..

We got back around 2.30pm and wanted to make the most of the day, so we headed up to La Jolla (which we didn't realise was pronounced 'la-hoya'.. Never mind) and it was beautiful, apart from it being overcast. There were pelicans and seals everywhere, we could've watched them all day. We went down onto the little cove beach and climbed on some rocks, got soaked, and then just wandered along the promenade. We stopped off at the Mission Bay area on the way back to the hotel, which was also lovely.

Yesterday we woke to heavy rain again, couldn't believe it! Even the weather channel didn't know what to say about it and it was chaos on the roads. They react to rain like England does to a bit of snow. So we dressed slightly warmer for the day and stepped out the door, only to be hit by a wave of heat that very much took us by surprise. One last look at the weather said it would be a high of about 24C. So got changed back into cool clothes and headed out. By the time we got on the trolley, the sun was blazing and there wasn't a cloud in sight.

We stopped at Old Town, a historic reconstructed Mexican/Spanish state park area giving you a feel of early San Diego. Hopped on again and stopped at Little Italy, although after a couple of minutes of trying to find the actual Little Italy area and failing, I realised I didn't want to be wandering around looking like lost tourists in the city. So we just headed for the big bay and walked down towards town. Having lost the trolley after that we wound up in Gaslamp Quarter which is a little hub of restaurants and bars, and home to Horton Plaza, an uptown shopping mall. Then a Greenpeace activist stopped us and lured us in with a load of blurb, which was all very interesting, before asking for us to sign up and make $20 monthly donations. We kindly declined, I played the 'my Brother is involved with the Green Party back in the UK' card, and he let us go. One of the things they are campaigning against currently, is the irresponsible fishing of tuna in the US by companies John West and Chicken Of The Sea (because it is illegal to do it in the UK now, so they do it in the US where they can get away with it). As much as I agree with it all, I realised I'd bought Chicken Of The Sea tins of tuna yesterday for my sandwiches, oops!

The heat was incredible and I said to Phil, wow 24 degrees over here is a different kind of heat to the UK, you'd never be this hot! So with a pounding head, pouring with sweat and blisters on my feet, and feeling increasingly edgier the further we were heading into the city, I wanted to get back on the trolley and find our way back to the hotel. We stopped at a particularly dodgy stop, as I realised we were going the wrong way, so needed to change lines. In trying to act casually and not obviously be tourists, made a blunder of trying to get on the trolley the wrong side to be shouted at which way to get on, then was sat near a guy who repeatedly mentioned aloud 'white man' amongst other things.. Of which Phil was the only one in our carriage. A bit scary, but we got on the right track eventually and stopped by at Old Town again to go a saloon for a refreshing margarita! And when we got back we went straight in the pool to cool off which felt great. We later found out upon watching the weather again that San Diego had reached record high temperatures and we'd been walking around in 42C heat! No wonder we felt so knocked out.

Today I think we'll head back towards Mission Bay and go to a beach to relax, it's scorching again. And hopefully see a bit more of Balboa Park too.

Lovely little La Jolla Cove, shame about the weather!

A little area of Mission Bay, hope to get better pics today.