Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Last Full Day in San Diego

The threat of rain never materialized and we had another great day in southern California. I am writing this in the evening, because we need to be up and on our way first thing in the morning. No leisurly walks or blog entries tomorrow!

Tucker has been wanting to visit the Museum of Man in Balboa Park since we arrived and we kept putting it off for other things until today which ended up being a good decision because this museum was free today! I dropped the guys off at the museum and then drove to a yarn store where I needed to get some spare size zero needles  for the socks that I am currently
working on. I broke 2 needles on the trip out here and fortunately had a few spares with me, so I needed to replace the spares. I went to a very lovely shop called Two Sisters and Ewe and they were having their winter sale so my needles were 10% off. I also treated myself to some
merino wool and silk roving that was 20% off. This was a quick trip and I was back in Balboa Park looking for a parking space in less than an hour's time. I caught up with Tucker and Jim who were just finishing up at the Museum of Man and we headed to the Art Museum for a quick tour, because that was another one of the freebies on this particular Tuesday. Then Tucker started to need his Mexican food fix so we headed north to La Jolla, to the Birch Aquarium at the Scripps Institute. 

We made a stop at what turned out to be a chain of mexican restaurants called Rubio's and it was good. I worry that Tucker may grow gills with all the fish tacos he has eaten in the past week! On to the aquarium!

Jim and I had been to this aquarium 25 years ago and in that time, they moved from a facility down by the ocean to a new building up on the cliffs. It is a great aquarium with just the right amount of displays for me, not so many that I get restless and bored. Here are a couple of photos from the aquarium. The first one is of the kelp forest tank and the
second one shows Jim and Tucker playing in the fake river, diverting water to make
new hydraulics and then sending toy boats down the river to see what happens. It was great fun for big and little kids!

After the aquarium we continued north to Torrey Pines State Preserve to see the rare Torrey Pines. Great pine trees with huge pine cones.
And once again, this attraction sits on some prime real estate along the coast. We were able to hike some trails on top of the cliffs to some ocean overlooks and then hike down to the beach. There were some great walls of eroded rock which reminded us of the rock formations in Bryce Canyon. Tucker and I hiked along the beach, while Jim hiked back up to the car at the upper parking lot and drove to the lower lot to meet us. Tucker and I took off our shoes and waded in the 57 degree ocean. It was a lovely afternoon.

We took the scenic drive back to the beach house and got our stuff packed up. Dinner was at a seafood place downtown on the harbor front. We had a window table with view of the harbor and got to watch several boats/ships moving past. 

This has been a wonderful 5 days in San Diego. The weather has been great and we have done many enjoyable things. I'm so glad that Jim and Corey gave us a reason to come out here in February! Plus we got to spend some quality time with Tucker, who graciously carried our daypack for the past 4 days!

Tomorrow Jim and I head east and Tucker will be flying to Portland, OR to spend a week with a friend. Here's hoping all of our flights go as planned. 

No blog tomorrow (Thursday).

Hope all is well.

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