San Diego, California

People who have lived in San Diego complain about the weather. They say it's just too perfect. People will complain about anything. Many of the Hawaiians that live in Alaska have told me the same thing about Hawaii. "You just get tired of paradise" they say.

I just got back from a short trip where the weather was sunny and cloudless almost every single day. A few of the days were identical. But when i got back to Alaska i was thrown back into cloudy fall days, and i have to say it was refreshing. There may be some truth to the idea that a monotony of perfect weather can get old.

The beach at Point Lomo. I wanted to get down on the beach and to do that i needed to find the stairs at the far end, but i ran out of time, unfamiliar with the streets. It worked out well anyway.

Everyone always tells me San Diego is super nice. Some people have even told me that it is too nice to live in, insofar as life is too easy there. I don't know about that. After a brief two days in the city it seemed pretty darned livable to me.... The best Mexican food in the country, great weather, clean parks, a beautiful coastline, the only thing that bothered me was the frequent drone of Apache Helicopters patrolling the border and coastline.

Historically San Diego was the home of the Kumeyaay Natives for 10,000 years before being claimed by the Spanish in the late 1700's. Then it became part of Mexico for 30 years before anchoring the US border in 1850. It is the oldest city in California.

Downtown San Diego. Embarcadero Marina Park is a pleasant walk along the waterfront. The people in the distance made us get out of the way because they were apparently doing an Oakley Sunglasses photo shoot. They said i wasn't pretty enough to be in the picture.

Meerkats. Wildlife photography is soooo much easier when the wildlife is imprisoned.

They have no self respect.

The zoo was not quite as great as i'd heard, but was certainly above average. It was possibly the most crowded zoo i've ever been too. What i've noticed about zoos is that the herbivores seem to do alright, while the predators seem to suffer greatly from the confinement. The San Deigo zoo was a pioneer in creating cages without "the cage". There are few, if any, bars and most animals can be observed without fencing in the way.

The Elephants had a lot of space for a zoo.

A glimpse of the city from the gondola. The zoo is part of Balboa Park, a huge collection of museums and parkland originally built for the World Exposition of 1915.

This bird wanted me dead.

There were a couple of walk in aviaries that were nice because the birds were flying all around you in a large greenhouse setting.

The primates looked typically unhappy under constant observation.

Our hotel, (Best Western Hacienda in Old Town) looked really cool on the outside, but had no elevators, and was stretched across a huge 7 story plot of land. Unfortunately the rooms were sub par and the staff was careless and unthoughtful.

This is inside what i think they said was the oldest building in San Diego. A ranch home in Old Town. I wish our hotel room had been this nice.

This is San Diego today. People come to this famous tram station for it's magical healing powers.

Downtown has a nice outdoor mall called Horton Plaza. I don't usually go to malls but Maree had to go to the Hello Kitty store, so i had nothing to do for an hour. The center picture is from Old Town.