January – February, 2019
There are just a few more adventures to share from our time in San Diego.
Coronado Island is not an island at all. It’s really a peninsula – connected to the mainland by a thin strip of land. We thoroughly enjoyed a bike ride heading out from the visitors center in downtown (a decent stop in its own right!) towards Coronado Island State Park. We were glad that a fairly strong headwind greeted our ride out; it would have been a bear to ride tired into that wind on the way back in.
The Hotel Del Coronado is a 5-star resort looking out onto the Pacific Ocean with its own private beach. Turns out that some scenes from the movie “Some Like It Hot” starring Marilyn Monroe, Jack Lemmon, and Tony Curtis were filmed there. We could remember pictures of the hotel’s exterior, the beach and ocean, and of course the lobby and interior of this grand classic hotel.
Our friends Tom and Kelley were in town, and a visit together to the USS Midway Museum was part of our agenda. Midway is an aircraft carrier, decommissioned by the United States Navy in 1992 after operating for 47 years. Commissioned a week after the end of World War II, Midway was the largest ship in the world until 1955, as well as the first U.S. aircraft carrier too big to transit the Panama Canal. Retired Navy Veterans, many of whom served our Country aboard Midway, were docents and were able to share (declassified) stories of serving aboard. They also let us now that a new enlarged flight deck had to be installed to accommodate Navy jets, but otherwise what we were seeing was intact from the date of her launching. Midway saw action in the Vietnam War and served as the Persian Gulf flagship in 1991’s Operation Desert Storm.
Another San Diego harbor icon is just next to the Midway. This is the statue entitled “Unconditional Surrender.”
Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery is very near the Cabrillo National Monument. During our visit to the Monument with Graham and Leigh, we stopped to pay our respects to those Americans who made the ultimate sacrifice for our Country. Internments date to the early years of California.
The cemetery is at once somber and beautiful, facing west from the roadway and looking out from the hillside onto the Pacific Ocean.
We’ve mentioned our bike ride through Balboa Park and our time at the Japanese Friendship Garden in another blog. The Park is a San Diego must, and be sure to set aside enough time to really appreciate all it has to offer. Here are a few pictures of the wonderful architecture.
We had the chance to see wheelchair basketball played close up, and if you haven’t had the privilege to do so it is highly recommended. The style of play is “take no prisoners,” some deadeye shooters, and an agility that is truly amazing. And if you talk to the players they are humble and appreciative that you recognize their ability. The team Graham coaches, the San Diego Silverbacks, held a scrimmage with another team and we were able to watch. Love the national logo.
If you’re ever in San Diego be sure to have a meal at the Tofu House (any of the hot stone crispy rice dishes are highly recommended); eat fish tacos at Mitch’s on the bay at Point Loma, and drink a kick-ass mai tai (they even restrict you to 2!), and order the lightly fried 14-ounce black cod for dinner at Bali Hai on Shelter Island as the lights of San Diego come up.
Tofu House:
One more word or 2 about Mitch’s. The restaurant is owned by 3 families who have been fishing the waters off of San Diego for generations, and the fish you order has been caught by the families or other fishermen they know…and they believe that stewardship of the ocean is their guiding principle: only sustainably caught seafood is served, and they work with a number of groups to ensure a clean and vibrant future for our beaches and ocean.
We will miss radio station 88.3 – KSDS whose blend of classic, bebop, and modern jazz, and the skill of their DJ’s is unsurpassed in any metro market of which we have knowledge.
And lastly we will miss being so close to Graham and Leigh.
Onward through Yuma and into Phoenix.
Barbara and Brian
Aimless Wanderings 
Interesting to see what they do, sometimes, with decommissioned ships. My brother served aboard the USS Enterprise for a portion of his early Naval career, and when they retired the ship, he became a plank-holder. I think this means they took the ship apart, although I’m not entirely certain. I know he wound up with a porthole from one of the ships on which he served, and I think it was the Enterprise (but I’m not certain). Love that enormous statue!
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