Chefprefers BLOG

Our trip continued and with an overnight in San Diego and LA, we were able to have a sneak peek of the Southern Californian cities. It was just over a 3-hour drive to San Diego and our first stop was at San Diego’s Balboa Park.

The information clerk mentioned the Morton Bay fig tree which is the oldest in the park. We had come across a few large ones in Sydney, we had to see it and Yep it’s pretty big.

From there we walked over to the artist’s gallery. We were told that there were 120-130 artists in this area. Although, the highlight for me is the eggshell artist. He would collect animal eggs ranging from the largest Ostrich to the smallest finch. Designs in shell (https://designsinshell.com/) Perhaps used on the Christmas tree.

I walked into another artist’s shop and struck up a conversation with an artist. We talked about Australia, Retirement, her home town, my hometown town and about vendors in my travels, (About ready to sell you anything. I started to tell her a my travels in Vietnam and her response was “Oh no!” Well, I stopped for a minute and wondered what Americans still thought about the South Asian country. The country they went to war with and still sore about being beaten. The humiliation of having to evacuate because the American public lost interest. She waited for me to say the worst about it. But I didn’t have any of that because I’ve been there and in my Vietnam journal (See writer’s stuff Link). I had expressed my anger towards the Americans because of the Agent Orange program. Spreading the poison agent which would cripple this nation for years to come. Here was another person who had been fed propaganda that the Vietnamese were evil. I would have to say that the Vietnamese have the nicest persona of any race. Never once have I felt threatened or belittled by a Vietnamese. You would only know this if you visited or met the people in the country.

Our next stop was the National History Museum https://www.sdnhm.org/ I saw a great movie Wings over Water in one of the exhibits. They showed the equivalent of the Amazon, the US/Canadian Prairies on how they are important to the migration of millions of wildlife every year. Fascinating! The other spectacle was the time pendulum in the front foyer. They had dominoes set that would be struck on every hour. If you wanted to see the event you had to be patient and see it. And yes I did.

Later, we checked into the Horton Grand Hotel downtown in the Gaslamp district. The populas of San Diego was originally located in Old Town. However, in 1867, Alonzo Horton, the father of downtown, purchased several hundred acres of waterfront property (@27.5 cents per acre). This became a new town since the old town (established by the Royal Presidio) was far from the bay and for the town to thrive, it needed the San Diego Bay access. Although, from my perspective, the town has a flaw. After going for a walk after dinner (Las Hadas Bar & Grill), we ventured towards the bay only to be challenged by the railway and the National Convention Centre. We needed to wait for the very active train crossing as well as climb the 100 steps to walk over the convention centre to see the ocean. The locals took the 100-step challenge as a daily workout. It was continuously being used by people to run up and down. The bay was full of yachts and some very expensive-looking ones as well. It was dark so the bay lit up like a Christmas tree. Very nice!

The next day, we planned to drive up the coast since we had all day before catching up for dinner with my niece and nephew who live in LA. We had heard that La Jolla was a town not to miss, so our first stop was for Brunch at the Cove House just up the road from the La Jolla Cove. Eggs Benedict was consumed and then afterwards we headed for a stroll to the beach cove.

When we reached the beach, we were treated with a surprise, there was a colony of sea lions. They were lying around on top of rocks less than 50 meters away. Some were swimming in the water and people were going out to swim with them. Very cool! The coast provided several outlet and beach views along how we explored and took in the lovely warm weather. It was a very nice day.

Since it was Halloween, there were lots of houses styled with pumpkins, skeletons and witches decorations.

My niece has a four and a one-year-old, so, of course, the four-year-old wasn’t going to miss Holloween. So our arrangement for meeting was a little tricky and we ended up gathering at R/10 Social House on Redondo Beach.

Unfortunately, our meeting was cut short by my sister having to catch a flight at 10 pm and My niece having to rescue her daughter from the Halloween activities.

Note: Her daughter was with another family.

Next up finding the best Nanaimo Bars.