Day 15 July 15, 2916 San Pedro to San Diego

Breakfast was crowded and Pam cooked her own.  Headed to Port of Los Angeles and saw Battleship Iowa.  Went to Long Beach and saw Queen Mary and old hotels. Also saw Lincoln Park and Parker’s Lighthouse.   Passed through numerous beach towns on the PCH.  All were very crowed and full of traffic.  Hard to make our way down the coast. Even more traffic when the road turned into I 5.  Hate traffic.  Back on PCH and still too many towns back to back.  All traffic and traffic lights.  Ate lunch (supper) Hotel Del Coronado (1888).  Drove to Mexican border and saw Tijuana. Went to Gas Light district and Balboa Park in San Diego.  Didn’t get there in time to see Madison Bumgarner play because of traffic :(. Camped at the Four Points Sheraton.  Mileage 187.7 

 Boring day until the very end.  Imagine driving in Myrtle Beach traffic on Ocean Drive through town all the way down the coast of California.  Now you understand our day.  Stop, go, stop, go, wait on people to park and turn, stop some more for no reason at all, hardly go at all.  We are not fond on the southern California coast.  Every once in a while we were treated to a beach scene but they were short lived, few and far between.  One town had five roundabouts.  Pam was excited because there were no stop signs at every corner. At the end of that town she had decided that that was quite enough.  I think Dandy made it quicker than we did to San Diego. I guess there were fewer towns and much less traffic then.

On the way we saw a sign that said: possible dust clouds next 11 miles.  We actually saw a foggy looking cloud for about that long.  We also passed a nuclear plant right across the street from the ocean.  We think it is also built on a fault line.  Not good planning.  We passed by the Del Mar race track as some type of race was going on.  When Pam asked for directions at the beginning of the route, I told her she needed to take the road until she couldn’t take it anymore.   I had no idea it would take that long to find the end.

We finally made it to San Diego and were headed out to Hotel Del Coronado – a very old, regal hotel that was once the largest wooden building in America.  Almost every important person ever has been there including us. I am winning because I have been there several times.  There is a massive and I do mean massive bridge to the island.  We went across it in all of the traffic but when we got to the other side, the congestion and road closures caused us to get in a lane that forced us back across the bridge.  Seriously.   We had to cross it yet again and find an alternate route to the hotel.  When we finally got there it was a little after 4.  We had planned to eat lunch there but there was traffic, traffic, traffic and too many bridges.  So we decided to eat lupper (lunch and supper for those who never watched All in the Family).  We finally found a parking place and made it around to the beach side of the hotel to the restaurant.  It is open from 11 to 3 and 5 to 11.  Our lupper turned into supper.  We walked the beach while we waited for it to open and that is how we missed Madison Bumgarner pitch in San Diego tonight.  We were very sad.  Supper was delicious and we were much happier after we had finished eating.

Since we couldn’t make the game, we headed down to see the border.  We didn’t cross into Tijuana like Dandy did but saw it nonetheless.   We drove through the gaslight district and Balboa Park on the way to the hotel.  It would have been great to have spent the entire day at these two places but alas, traffic.   I think Balboa Park is where Dandy camped.  It is full of fabulous old buildings and terrific gardens.  We drove all over trying to find a parking place so we could get out for a minute.  There seemed to be an event going on.  We finally saw a sign that said that Balboa Park comes alive on Fridays.  They weren’t kidding.  We finally found a parking place as it was getting dark and quickly walked through the rose and cactus gardens.

Got to the hotel to check in and found that many of the rooms had flooded…who knows why.  They gave us a room with a king and rollaway because that is all they could find.  They did compensate by giving us some points back and a few free things like parking and breakfast.  We are all tired and looking forward to a good night’s sleep.  This room did cost me 10K starwood points but they did say I would get some back.  Oh and I went to get ice and this floor’s machine was broken.  Sigh.  Not my favorite hotel.