Enjoying San Diego at a slower pace...

Today was a rather nice wonderfully warm day as we puttered around in the campground during the morning....  I didn't do much, but was outside draining the tank.....  you know the icky one...

We have a flush out and you have to change the water hose over to it to rinse it out...  And then since the water here is so much nicer and softer than the Arizona water that was in the fresh water tank, I drained it...

Then I let the nice soft SD water refill the tank from the hose connection...  We have a valve to switch the water inlet over to the fresh tank...  And once it fills, it overflows the tank outside hose fill next to the  front door...  I let it run for a while to further purge the water in the fresh tank...  It was still dripping out of the air intake late this afternoon..... Guess it is really full...

And then I was washing the concrete off back under the rear of the coach...  The trees drop all sorts of junk back there so I was cleaning up...  Or was I just standing out in the shady sun and enjoying a summer like activity..  Anyway I also washed out the waterlocker bay on the rig as well....  It gets all sandy back under there as hoses are put away dirty.  Also there is a big hole in the bottom of the locker for the sewer hose and the rear wheel throws up junk from the road....

Eventually Loyce announced that she was going to the quilt store in La Mesa....  Uh, I wondered how long that would take.....  I suggested that she have a nice time..... but no.....  I was taking her....

So once clean with a shower and fresh clothes, we were on our way..   I kind of drove around the quaint little shopping area while she spent her hour inside...  I parked along the curb of this little cottage style store and worked on my handheld two way ham radio for a while as well....

After that was done, we went to a Wal Mart back about half way toward the campground...  I used the GPS to find it as a point of interest...  It was becoming hot in the car, so we took turns staying out with Biscuit while the other shopped for our needs....  Loyce was in there a lot longer than me.....

Oh, and tonight at dusk we were out along the silver strand beach as the sun was setting...  Turned around at the Del and came back the same way...  After it was dark we were driving in Imperial Beach along the Ocean...  There is a row of beach homes that goes way South into the slough that separates the USA from Tijuana..

We were just slow driving looking at the homes and the ocean between them and eventually turned around at the very end where you can go out on the beach...  It was dark so we didn't leave the car... But you could see all the lights on the hillside cliff across the inlet of Tijuana..  Loyce and I were discussing that you couldn't cross here but had to go over to San Ysidro.  As we were pulling away I notice we had a white full sized SUV sitting quietly behind us....  With a large green emblem on its door...

Yep the US Boarder Patrol...  They get paid to be stealthy and inquisitive..   We were just being touristy...  But hey how do they know...?  He followed me all the way back up the beach and was eventually satisfied that we were not there to pick up an illegal....  The Toyota has a Kansas plate...  wonder what he was thinking...

Tonight it is getting cool again as we are only about two miles from the bay....

Retired Rod

Beaches

Today we decided to go to the beaches along the outer Western edge of San Diego and then on North to La Jolla....  There are several beach jurisdictions along that distance...

Mission Beach, and the channel causeway...

We drove right up to La Jolla past the Sea World peninsula and Mission Bay...  Stopped for some gas in Pacific Beach at a station that had $4.19 a gallon...  From Gas Buddy, I knew this was a favorable price....  We have seen $4.59 in places...

We always enjoy the beaches up in La Jolla...  We pull in along the beach parking and just sit there and enjoy the view...  The wind coming off of the ocean was quite cool to cold even though the sun was blinding...

Still the younger folks had shorts and t shirts as they rode their skate boards along the beach walks... As older folks, we had the windows almost closed...  How does that work...?

We wandered up thru the University of California's San Diego campus and the Torrey Pines area, before coming back rather quickly on the I 5... We stopped somewhere along that road for an In and Out burger...

In the late afternoon we were wandering around Mission Beach and then the Sunset Cliffs area North of the Navy Base and Point Loma....

Lifeguard station at the South end of Mission Beach

When we decided to get back to the RV, we passed the South side of the San Deigo Airport...  I found this interesting as we drove right past the old old barracks that were the Naval Training Facility from World War II and also during Viet Nam...  Some of my sailor buddies and I spent several nights there while we were stationed up in the Oxnard area back in the 60s...

All of the windows are broken or gone now, and the buildings are beyond repair....  I understand that the buildings are beyond any use, but wonder why they are still even there... Perhaps the Navy doesn't want to use any money on removing them....

We were back here in the park about 5:30...  But it seems much later with the sun beyond the big cliff to our West and the time change that we are not used to....

Retired Rod

Buzzing around in SD

It doesn't help to try and sleep in a little longer when your in a strange time zone, cause you wake up just the same..  And so it was at 6:30 this morning...  I was trying to sleep in but it just didn't work...

The front of the motorhome was covered in bugs so after a breakfast of WHITE Sausage Gravy and Grits...........  LOL.... no that was for Ricks benefit as he wrote a blog about library paste and the like, yesterday....

Well we did have some pancakes and eggs... cooked on a new grill that I got at Wal Mart yesterday....  Cheap one, $42 but it has the right size to fit on our counter...  So breakfast was a good one...

Then I was outside with the brush and a bucket scrubbing all the nasty bugs we collected coming over here..  Eventually I had the hose out rinsing the windows..  I kept eyeing the park workers wondering if I was breaking the rules about washing the rig...

They never did come over and ask or tell me to quit...

When we finally left the park, we went around to the South end of the Silver Strand Beach.  The wind was blowing in from the Ocean but it was in the 60s and sunny....  The beach was deserted.....  The campground was closed and appears to be closed permanently...

Then we headed up to the beach North of the Hotel Del Coronado...  There were a lot more people there, but they were playing on the beach and sunning themselves...  Still there were no parking places...

Again I didn't grab the good camera so these are cell phone shots...

First is the Hotel and the Beach in front.  This is more built up every time we are here.

If I had the panoramic camera these two pictures could be added together as the buildings overlap...  There are some people out on the beach but they aren't in the water...

This is looking straight out into the Pacific...  If you look more to the North, you are looking at Point Loma which is where the Navy Submarine Base is located....  But this would be looking Southwest..

We then ended up downtown driving in the traffic....  San Diego is a business center as well...  People in suits and ties.... carrying thick legal briefs in thick accordion files.... and the ever present homeless....  such a contrast...

Then down to the waterfront... which we spent time on a number of years ago...  It was back when we came here with our employer, but we couldn't remember what year it was or where we stayed..

We did remember taking the whale watching tour on the Hornblower out into the ocean along the Mexico coast...  We also did the tour of the Navy docks that year too...

I'm not sure where the afternoon went, but we were on the North side of the bay along where the Airport is looking back at the city docks....

We came home driving past the big hotels and the convention center....  As the day ended we were back at the RV park scrubbing the bird do do off of the car....

Seems we have some attraction in the trees here that is attracting a lot of  black birds, or ravens...  I thought it was a mini production of the movie the Birds about 6 PM... Ravens everywhere...

We enjoyed seeing the familiar sights around here today, but haven't discussed where we will go tomorrow...

Retired Rod

On to San Diego

As RV days often go our day today was compartmentalized...  We awakened to the wind  flapping our awning slide out toppers...  Shaking the entire coach...Flop, flop, flop......  5:30 AM...  The electric heaters were running full force...

We didn't turn on the gas heaters so space heaters were all we had going...  Later after a shower I stepped outside and learned that is was quite cool along with the wind...

I buzzed off to Wal Mart for some more quick groceries to make breakfast...  Compartment one...  Once on the road we were battling the wind as we crossed the sand dunes out by Oglby Road...

You can't see it from this shot, but the wind was blowing the sand across the road like it was snow.    The dust just filled the air in almost a brown out....     We headed for the Imperial Valley where the crops  hold the ground together....

On the West side of the Valley we stopped in a rest area for a bite of lunch and to make a day camp because we were now an hour ahead of Arizona and suddenly it was barely noon...  It was only 100 miles from here to San Diego and we would be there before checkin otherwise...

But first we had to climb the mountains with the big boulders....

These are just some of the rock piles as you go up to 4200 feet..  Another one of those compartments as now the wind was gone but it was barely 50 at the top of the mountain....

At about 40 miles from the campground you start down the big hill into SD...  I was using the Jake Brake engine retarder as we buzzed down hill..  Some of the folks I was following rode their brakes all the way down....  You could smell it by just following them....

Suddenly we were in the city on the freeways.......  Yet another compartment....  As we were to turn South to come to the Campground a big truck rode along my passenger side and absolutely refused to move away....  Riding me right past the intersection, forcing me to continue on I 8...  So then my GPS did one of those recalculating bits and we had to go to the 805 South.....   longer....  I got in the very outside lane so I couldn't be railroaded again...

We pulled into the Metro KOA at the 805 and US 54 intersection..  Not far from the bay...  Using the GPS it led me under the road to a serene park right in the center of town...  The place is pricey for a campground...  but we aren't staying for too long so we will enjoy it while we are here... The last compartment for our day...   Seems peaceful here....  But a Navy helio just flew over....

 We usually wouldn't pick a place like this but we like to go over to the outer island and hang out by the ocean so its convenient..

Our internal clocks keep telling us its later than it is and we have a large cliff to our West that blocks the afternoon sun..

You can see it behind the campers and the two story camper cabins...  That was a first for us too...









The trees here will keep us from connecting our satellite TV I'm sure, but in the center of San Diego we should have fairly good antenna reception I would think..

Again the cell phone pictures aren't all that good but they are convenient as they upload to blogger the instant you take them....

I'm not sure what we plan to do here other than enjoy the change from the desert...  Everything is green and you can smell the ocean in the air....  Seems like spring is here...

Retired Rod