San Diego experience

We moved on from Malibu to Anaheim not to visit Disney World but to get nearer to San Diego as we usually travel 100 miles or under when we move.

You wondered why we are taking so long to get out of California.  We are the tortoise not the hare. On our first night there was a magnificent fireworks display from across the road in Disneyland.  It lasted half an hour.  It was President’s Day. 

We took a trip to Balboa Island, (it is near Newport Beach).  What a beautiful little resort this is.  The houses look tiny and cute, they are painted beautifully, some have a theme, like boating or sailing, Irish or Dutch and on the perimeter of the island the houses have their own gated marinas. Prices range in the multi-million dollars.  We took the car ferry to Balboa Beach where we had a picnic on the beach or as I used to say to my children “let’s have sand sandwiches”.

We arrived in San Diego and pulled into a RV Park called “Camp Land” right on Mission Bay.  There are activities organized every morning, yoga, water aerobics, tennis, aerobics. Needless to say I tried them all...

We were not too far from my friends Barbara and Debbie. The weather was beautiful when we arrived but the forecast was for rain. We had Dinner at Barbara’s on our first night; it was great to see her. Barbara had invited Leslie and her boyfriend Dieter also, I had met both before and they had visited us in Los Gatos.

The weather got cold and wet our first week end - all of San Diego’s February rainfall fell in 48 hours – and, we had lots of puddles. The second night Leslie had us to her fabulous new home for dinner. Lucky us!

Throughout our stay we had a male and female duck literally camped right outside our door. They had no fear of humans they just quacked and sat by the door, demanding to be fed.    

Debbie and Mike came to lunch in our RV and that was a wet day (they brought lunch) and also treated us to dinner at Il Fornio on Coronado Island looking back at San Diego, what a lovely setting? We watched the lights go on in downtown San Diego which was pretty.

We also hiked in Torrey Pines State Park with Debbie and Mike - a truly amazing place to hike – spectacular. Afterwards we dined at Chef Debbie’s; where we enjoyed the best Lamb roast, ever!! 

I got to play tennis with Barbara’s group twice, most of whom I know from previous visits.  Some very strong characters and I don’t mean tennis. Barbara was our chauffer to quite a few of the scenic sights of SD. We saw the yachts that compete in the “Americas Cup” race on the Bay.  That was really exciting, we enjoyed it so much we went back a second day.

Visiting the “Midway” aircraft carrier turned out to be a real surprise. Once again it was much better than we had expected.  It is like a city on a ship. We visited the Bridge first that took half an hour. We spent 2 hours on board and we needed longer. Thanks to Barbara we went to the Zoo on two passes.  That is the best Zoo in the World.  The animals are so well looked after, the landscaping is beautiful and they have Panda bears and Koala bears.

We had several dinner parties at Barbara’s and each time I met friends form previous visits. The weather improved as the week wore on so we decided to stay longer as we were enjoying ourselves so much.