23-SAN DIEGO, Part 3

You can’t go to San Diego without going to the beach, especially in February when the weather is perfect.

Seaport Village is always a popular stop for locals as well as tourists.

It is a beautiful place full of shops and restaurants right on the San Diego Bay. There are plenty of places to walk along the marina to look at the boats…

…the Coronado bridge in the distance…

…and the impressive San Diego skyline.

The Harbor House is our long time favorite place for lunch. They have one of the best clam chowders around.  Searching out great clam chowders is one of our “hobbies.”

We sat upstairs at the Harbor House watching the people below. On the weekends the lawns are full of people flying kites.

When Don’s daughter, Shannon, graduated from high school we brought her to this restaurant on the bay to celebrate. A young waiter blatantly flirted with her right in front of her dad. She pretended to be embarrassed by it, all the while enjoying every minute of the attention.

Nearby the famous Star of India tall sail ship is permanently docked.

Somehow it took less time to go through Seaport Village than it used to so after a leisurely lunch we drove down to Point Loma to the Cabrillo National Monument. There is an amazing view of San Diego Bay and out to the ocean from there.

There is also an historic lighthouse that you can see from the parking lot. It is a serious hike up there which neither one of us felt like taking, so, thanks to a long lens on my camera, I just took a picture from down below.

There is a monument of Cabrillo here (always surrounded by tourists especially on days like this one).

Just down below is where Cabrillo originally landed. It is now part of a Navy Submarine Base.

Joao Rodrigues Cabrillo landed here in 1542. He certainly picked a beautiful place to land.

From the monument we could see a beautiful view of the San Diego skyline…

the famous Hotel del Coronado…

…and ships and sail boats coming from the ocean into port.

On the way out we passed the Point Loma National Military Cemetery. It was an impressive sight with the cemetery on the side of the hill and the bay in the background.

Next we met up with Jack and Claudia Downes (who we had seen in Indio, CA a few weeks ago) for a lengthy lunch on a North County beach in the community of Cardiff by the Sea.

On our way up there, we saw a sight that we would never see in Central Oregon. This was a pick-up truck with a surf board on top.  He has the flashing red and blue lights (not showing in this picture) and is giving this guy a ticket….Ah, California!

The restaurant where we had lunch with Jack and Claudia was right on the beach. It was a great location and the weather (have I mentioned?), was wonderful.

There were families on the beach…

…and surfers catching a wave. We had a great time and a great view.

The next day was Sunday and we went to Escondido to go to the church where we were married and where we attended services for several years.

That afternoon I met and had lunch with Sandi Wilkinson, (L) and Carol Groseth (R), friends of mine from way back. We were all in a Bible study together from about 1990 until when we moved away from the area. These are wonderful women that I miss greatly.

So when Sunday night rolled around, we were more or less getting ready to pull out come morning for our trip home.

I was at my desk working on the last blog that I posted. It was getting a bit late. Don was watching TV and I decided to visit the bathroom.

When I finished my blog, I headed to the back of the motorhome. At this point I began yelling because the motorhome was flooding. Not a situation one EVER wants to see. Don said to me, “I would never want to be in a fox hole with you!” I can’t imagine why not. I was the one who let him know we were being “attacked!”

And “Attacked” we were. Toilets in motorhomes are a bit different then the ones in your house. After you flush, you pull up a lever to add (CLEAN!) water into the toilet to seal it from sewer gasses. No problem, all (RV’ers) do it all the time.

HOWEVER, if the lever sticks….well not a good situation!

We had just put brand new carpeting in the motorhome including a piece that was bound and covered the tile floor from the edge of the bedroom carpet for the length of about five feet through the bathroom to the refrigerator in the kitchen. It feels really good on the feet early in the morning…well, at least it DID!! 

That piece of carpet got the lion’s share of the flood water. After all the screaming, Don grabbed that piece and tossed it outside over a picnic table while I threw every towel in the motorhome on the growing puddles everywhere else. We had very wet carpet in part of the bedroom and part of the living room.

This morning everything was still VERY WET. Don tossed the five foot piece of carpet in the back of the Jeep for the ride home and I just kept changing out towels. The situation is slowly improving.

This is the second flooding incident on this trip. The first not nearly as wet as this one. Well, guess who is getting a brand new toilet installed when we get home? We don’t need any more of these types of “adventures.”

Today we began the trip home to Oregon. We will be there in about three days. It’s not an exciting trip…unless we have adventures which, obviously, sometimes happens…hopefully DRY ones.

We did drive past Edwards Air Base where the space shuttle used to land. There are a lot of huge planes on the runway there. There are mountains and windmills in the background.

Then near Tehachapi, the hills are covered with windmills. Why are only some of them turning?? Just can’t help wondering…Can you tell I am grasping at straws at this boring point in the trip?

Now we are in a highway rest stop on the I-5 freeway near Buttonwillow, CA for the night. We are planning on a peaceful night.

Tomorrow…usually the point in the trip where Don begins to wax philosophical. We will see.