Trip To San Diego
It's only about a six hour trip from Tucson. Actually, the trip is pretty interesting. One might think that six straight hours through the desert would get pretty boring. On the contrary, we found that there are several kinds of desert between here and San Diego. There is the standard desert like around Tucson, there is a more bleak kind of desert with hard-packed ground and less vegetation, there is a more lush desert, there is an area with sand dunes that look like the Sahara Desert, and there is the hilly, arid desert as you cross the mountains into California. It's all pretty interesting, with each having its own vegetation and appearance. The trip turns into an easy one with so much to look at.
Once in California, we immediately saw the difference in traffic than, well, anywhere we've been before. There is so much traffic, often five or six lanes in each direction packed with vehicles. They also drive very fast there, as Jess will attest to in a shade of pale. I found it to be fun driving, since despite the amount of traffic it always seems to at least be moving (we didn't drive in rush hour). Jess was less appreciative of it.
We stayed in a little hostel run by HI (Hostelling International). It was in the Point Loma part of San Diego, which is a beachfront peninsula that appeared to us to be a quite nice part of the city. Apparently, there are HI hostels all along the coast of California and up into Washington and Oregon, which gave us some ideas if we end up going that direction for our next assignment. That would be a very fun trip, staying in little hostels along our route.
The hostel itself was quite nice, clean and comfortable as HI hostels typically are. They had nice rooms and a free pancake breakfast, and there was even free wireless. We did notice that there seem to be two distinct types of guests: travelers, whether they are backpackers, older explorers, or people simply on their way through town, and the extended stay types, which tended to be males in their late thirties through fifties who looked a little rough and down on their luck. Really, paying $17 a night for a bunk is a pretty cheap way to live in San Diego. We paid more ($45 a night) for a private room, which was quite nice.
We did a lot of exploring in San Diego. We visited the Balboa Park area, where the San Diego Zoo and numerous museums are located. We didn't go in any museums, but the walk in that area is beautiful. We took a nap on the beach in the north part of town, which was very relaxing. We also spent a decent amount of time in the beach area of Point Loma, since it was very convenient to our hostel. We returned there several times, even after dark to hit the night life there. I also got some good pictures of surfers in the sunset.
We also met up with a college friend of Jess's and her husband both nights that we were there. Of course, it's always great to have friends in places like San Diego, because they tend to know the good places to eat and visit. We had dinner with them both nights that we were there, Thai food one night and Mexican the next. It was fun to hang out with them.
Sunday morning before we headed back, we drove up the coast a little north of San Diego, to get an idea of what California's coastline looks like. We didn't have nearly enough time to really enjoy doing this, so it will be something that we continue doing on our next trip to California. If we manage our hostel idea come May, we'll be lucky enough to see the coast of California in its entirety.
At any rate, it was a great short trip, and a good teaser to get us back there during this assignment. Our friends here in Tucson are also itching to go, so all the more reason. To see the photos of San Diego, click on the photo or text below:
Until next time, be safe.
