Mike & Kris - Enjoying The Ride

It seems we left the rainy Bay Area just in the nick of time!  I know we need the water, but it is nice to enjoy Spring Break with the sunshine, ocean, bay, and zoo!  And that’s just the first three days.  We traveled down on Friday and the last, what should have been three hours of the trip through Southern California, took over five hours–and we had  our first flat tire on the trailer–but we didn’t care because waiting for us here on Mission Bay was a great spot to park the fifth wheel.  It is just a couple steps from a bike bath that circles the Bay and eventually takes us all the way to the Pacific Ocean.

So we set off Saturday morning in search of the ocean on our bikes.  When we found the beach, we were blown away by the beautiful boardwalk, roller skates, restaurants, houses, surfers, and people.  They were everywhere.

 

In the afternoon we set off for Cabrillo National Monument at Point Loma which was the landing point of the first European in California.  His name was Juan Rodriquez Cabrillo and his trip was considered a failure because he didn’t bring back gold.  We disagree- we think he found the perfect spot!  It’s now getting later in the afternoon and we decided to drive over to Coronado to get a picture of downtown San Diego.  As we are crossing the bridge we notice air races are taking place in the spot we are headed.  And there are cars everywhere!  Maybe not our best plan but we kept moving and made it to the park eventually.  The race is over, but we do see a helicopter drop four people out from a very high elevation and then it does some amazing maneuvers.  It flew upside down, did flips, and took our breath away.  Mike even got a great city shot.  Not a bad first day.

The next morning we were up and out fairly early to spend the day at Balboa Park.  Wow, it is amazing.  We toured several museums with many left for our next trip.  We heard the huge organ play, watched street performers, and even watched an artist blow glass to create a vase.  Of course, I did my part to save the arts and bought a little something for myself.

 

Which brings us to Monday–our day at the zoo.  We wandered around for eight hours and loved every minute of it.  Not sure how many steps we did, but our legs were done at the end of the day.  Some favorite moments included hearing the lion roar (I think he was hungry), seeing the lioness  and the leopard pacing about 5 feet away from us while stalking small shadows, seeing the gorilla pose on his back with his hands behind his head, or watching the Arctic fox shyly come get food from its trainer. But the best moment was watching the elephant get a pedicure!  What a great place.

We ended the day by finding the iconic San Diego mural which is located on the side of a building in the North Park neighborhood (the featured image at the top of this page). This is a trendy, up and coming neighborhood with a lot of restaurants and brewpubs–a perfect dinner spot and finish to our day.