San Diego 2020! We are camped out in a little one bedroom cottage a 60 second walk from this Belmont Park sunset in Mission Beach for the next 31 days!!
We always try to meet up with my old pledge brother Mike and his wife Carolyn, also a Purdue alum, when we visit town. They just bought a new place in Point Loma so we rode our bikes there the first Saturday that Mike was back from the Newark Airport project he’s running to see their new place and walk to lunch at the Fish Shop near their house. They brought their new “grand-puppy” that you can see below the table. Very cute and well trained puppy!
Since we’re away from our home gym for a month we signed up for a month of boot camp and strength training at Cali4Fitness about a 4.5 mile bike ride just east of Mission Bay. Tato from Brazil and his wife Jillian run the very successful operation. Ang and I both are working to improve our strength, overall cardio fitness and drop a few pounds. At the end of the month we’ll be tested to see if we met our goals. 😬
I earned my Keelboat, Inter-coastal and Bareboating sailing certifications in Grenada last year so I thought I’d further hone my sailing skills on this 18’ Capri rental sailboat at Mission Bay. It was a 3 minute walk from our cottage and I got 10 hours of mostly solo sailing in. My primary focus was docking and I feel I’m much more confident docking under sail now. My next sailing adventure will be the Italian Coast this May. Va Bene!
We made several longer distance bike rides up the coast to Del Mar or Encinitas. This carving was off the beach near Del Mar.
There’s almost always an exodus to the beach to watch the sunset and we partook often.
We had a chance to meet our friend John Croft’s sister Bea and her husband Tom. They live up near LA but spend a month every year at the Beach Cottages in Pacific Beach. They treated us to wine and hors d’oeuvres and a sunset at their cottage. A very nice couple and we had much in common including John!
Once we parked our car in the tiny little garage we used our bikes or feet to do everything and go everywhere. Here we’re returning from the grocery store up in Pacific Beach with our panniers full of beer, liquor and food.
This gentleman had his ear ring sales techniques down to a science as he demonstrates how the sun and your “color” magically effect the color of the stones. He probably spent 20 minutes with himself and Angela (and sometimes me!) comparing different ear rings under different angles to the sun. It was like our own personal infomercial.
😊
We now have a memory we won’t forget and Angela has her new souvenir ear rings as well.
We now have a memory we won’t forget and Angela has her new souvenir ear rings as well.
We have to have at least one breakfast on the deck of Lahaina’s to make our month in San Diego complete.
Of course we brought our two cats with us and we shared time on our patio. They like going to the beach too!
One of our many sunsets, this one setting behind Crystal Pier in PB.
Angela’s sister Sandy and partner Steve came from Ft. Lauderdale to spend 5 days with us. We had a great visit and they got us out of our typical San Diego habits by going to different places and doing new things. Here we’re taking a hike above the cliffs of Torrey Pines on the one rainy’ish day we had.
They coaxed me to get my car out of the garage for a drive to Coronado Island where we enjoyed a sunset with drinks at the famous Coronado Hotel followed by dinner.
We also went on a whale watching tour off the coast where we followed 3 gray whales and saw many dolphins. There was also a trivia night at the Barrel Republic on Garnett where we battled all the millennials placing 2nd and won a $20 gift card! Ok Boomer was our team name. It was a nice visit and we’re glad they came.
After our Thursday morning Bootcamp we showered up and took a leisurely bike ride along the bay and ocean to the Lahaina Beach House to split a cheese burger and onion rings and a Lagunitas beer for me. Yummmm.
Our last Saturday we joined all the weekend cyclists on 101 and took 64 mi. round trip up to Carlsbad. We bucked a little headwind on this sunny and mild day which became a nice tailwind on our ride home along the beaches and beach communities
We found a nice little Italian bistro in Carlsbad where I enjoyed a healthy quinoa salad with salmon al fresco.
Our last day in San Diego was a full day. We had our last workout at Cali4Fit where we got tested and measured for our progress over the last 4 weeks. If you’re curious, let’s just say we might be a little more fit in-spite of our over zealous vacation diet. After the celebratory champagne brunch with the group at Bayside Landing we took some nice walks, did most of our packing and had a nice last night’s dinner at the PB Alehouse. Tomorrow we begin our two day drive back home to winter in Colorado.
