California: San Diego

 4-6 May 2022

California is always such a sentimental journey for me. Growing up in the Midwest, it was filled with familiar place names, recognizable from all those years of watching TV shows filmed in and around LA. From living in Orange County in my impressionable mid-20s to Berkeley in my early 30s, California will always own a part of my heart—even though it was several years before I felt at home there. 

After we saw the Zoo and spent time with Joost and Lori and kids, we had a couple of days to ourselves. We’re camped in nice RV park in Lakeside, so getting to downtown San Diego takes 20-30 minutes on the myriad freeways. There’s a freeway wherever you look and the lanes are constantly shifting (what starts out as the right lane will become the second to the left lane after the split—and they all seem to be six lanes across and are splitting all the time!).

Last night we got to see another baseball field, Petco Park, home the the Padres. Their mascot made one short appearance—he’s a short and chubby Friar of some sort, with a bald spot on his head and a brown robe, tied with rope belt. He was waving a yellow “SD” flag. I’m not sold on the brown and yellow color scheme but that just might be from being a mother and having changed my boys’ diapers when they were babies….the ballpark was gorgeous and new and right in the city, not far from the beach. All the spectators (well MOST 😉 of them!) were handsome, fit people in their mid-20s to their mid-30s. The women were either blonde or Hispanic and everyone had long hair! Manny Machato hit back-to-back home runs to account for all of the Padres’ scoring. Good game. Nice park.

I’ve always wanted to see the Hotel del Coronado, so we found some nearby beach parking on Coronado Island and walked on the beach boardwalk to the hotel. It was gorgeous. A true icon of the area. I’m glad I got to see it.  Then we drove back over the Coronado Island Bridge to the mainland and visited the USS Midway Museum. The entire aircraft carrier is the museum. I was gobsmacked at the size of it. The most interesting part of it was listening to the docents talk about how things worked. They were great. One actually served as a pilot on the Midway during Viet Nam—still sharp after all these years and it really made the “trap” (where the plane hooks the line to stop it on the flight deck—the wire sticks up 2-5 inches from the floor of the deck and that is what the plane has to latch on to…I tell you, it gave me the willies!) talk come alive!

Hotel del Coronado, Coronado Island

Lobby…there goes Dan (after this he said: ok. Now you’ve seen it. Anything else here?)

1887 Coronation Window depicts a young girl crowning herself as an allegorical representation of the Coronado. This design was developed with the building of the original hotel and placed over the fireplace mantel as a prominent feature of the lobby. It now resides on the second floor after having been fully restored in 2021, one of only four of the remaining original stained glass windows.

View across the (artificial) lawn out to the boardwalk and the ocean from the back of the Hotel.

San Diego Padres at Petco Park

Terrace level gathering place; loved the side-lit plexiglass railing panels. Note the lack of social distancing in the crowd leaving after the game, below, on the first level.

This clown head on the right field foul pole was weird. I asked the locals about it but they didn’t know anything. Doing some research with Dr Google, I found out that it’s a promotion piece with Jack In The Box fast food restaurants—it’s a burger chain out here. No one gets a prize if they hit it or anything, it’s just there. The locals didn’t even know it was a JITB thing! Haha….some advertising is more effective than others!

Pre-game, as we entered the field, there was this hill behind the scoreboard in the outfield. People were eating and drinking and hanging out listening to music. Since it was Cinco de Mayo, a band with a fun Latin beat was playing…hard not to dance to it, even with two left feet!

The young boys got to play a game of baseball but there were no girls on the field…sigh.
Maybe she didn’t WANT to play? Maybe her little brother was out there playing? She just looked to me as if SHE wanted to play (and show them how to do it!). Projection much?

Our view: excellent

I was so busy keeping score of the game, that I didn’t take many photos during the game. Here’s one as we were leaving—this reminds me of the hanging gardens of Babylon (not that I’ve been there!).

I bought the tickets and parking pass; Dan bought the food. I wanted a hot dog and here at Petco it was called a Barrio Dogg. You get them with all the condiments already on them and pre-packed in a clamshell container. I might’ve been hungry, but it was GOOD. The condiments were a squeeze of mayo, grilled onions/jalapeños, cheese, pickle relish (?) and some other stuff—as much condiments by weight as hot dog. But, good!

USS Midway Museum

Each of the signal flags on the starboard side of the ship stand for a letter; as best as I can tell, from top to bottom, on the left: M, I, D, W; on the right: M, A, G, I. This may or may not stand for something….

On the flight deck

From one end of the flight deck, looking back toward San Diego.

These dress whites look pretty sharp. There was a gathering to honor a retiring Navy and Marines chaplain who’d served for 28 years. I got to listen to some of his accolades and it did my heart good.
Also, the band was flawless.

One of the control centers. One of the docents filled us in on some of the codes used and how the sailors knew how to get around. He said they had to know how to get to three places: 1-where they eat, 2-where they work, and, 3-where they sleep. This ship was so enormous, no description from me can adequately describe it. You just have to see it for yourself.

Anchor chain rooms. Each link in the chain weighs 150 pounds.

Over the side of the Midway, you can look down on “the kissing sailor” statue. This is actually called “Unconditional Surrender” by J. Seward Johnson and is based on the famous 1945 LIFE Magazine cover photo. It’s 25 feet tall, weighs 6000 pounds, and lives in Tuna Harbor Park.

A couple more things before I go…

File this one under: nostalgia. I saw this close to the beach parking lot where we parked the truck. It’s called, variously, sea-lavender, marsh-rosemary, or statice. It dries beautifully and retains a lot of its color when dry. Why nostalgia? When I moved to California in 1980, I spent my first couple of nights in Encinitas, along the coast, at that time the northern reaches of San Diego. There was sea-lavender growing wild around the parking meters near the condo I was in. I was so impressed. And that impression is now filed in the “Nostalgia File”!

This might be old news to those of you who get out more than I do, but….I LOVE these bathroom stall indicators! When the door is closed, it pushes the red OCCUPIED sign into the opening at the top of the door. Open, the VACANT sign in green shows. No more bending over to see feet; no more embarrassing peering through the cracks between the door and the frame to see if a person is in there. Love these. They were in the women’s room at Petco Field and also on the Midway bathrooms. It must be a thing now.

Hand washing station on the Midway Ladies’ bathroom: get your soap (touchless) and then put your hands under this contraption. If you are to the left side, it gives you water to soap up and rinse. On the right side, there is a blower to dry your hands. Made by Dyson. Cool. All in one!

Tomorrow we drive up to LA where two more Presidential Libraries await. Stay tuned!