Hello!
We DID make it to SD, and we did stay at the Westin, an excellent location. And considering that complete lack of plans going in, we kept ourselves quite busy.
[okay, I didn't start this expecting to write a full trip report...but oh well]
Drove down Saturday morning and, after stopping at the SD visitor information center, went straight to the zoo. Gotta love the zoo. We got there at about 11, stayed until it closed at 6, and saw just about everything we wanted to. The polar bears were asleep by the time we saw them, and we never did find lions or bears, but we still saw some great stuff. Including
lots of baby animals (great time of year to go!). Moment of the day: We were watching a monkey exhitibit with 2 adult monkeys and 2 adolescents. The adults were busy cleaning each other, picking bugs and stuff off with their ands and teeth, with one of them paying particular attention to the other's, um, hindquarters. There was a family with a few young kids who were giggling and snickering at the site. But the dad stole they show as he turns the corner, sees what the kids are laughing at, and proclaims loudly, "Hey look, tossing monkey salad!"
After that we headed to the hotel, checked in, got some jacuzzi time in, then went to a late dinner in Gaslamp. We ate at George's, a steak house. Food was quite good, but it ended up being the worst meal we had all weekend. Not to bad mouth the place, the food was good, but we did real good with our food choices. Gaslamp was crowded, it being Saturday night on a holiday weekend. We walked up and down a couple times and settled on Lime, a little tequila bar. Nice time, good drinks. The, to sleep.
Sunday started with wandering around Gaslamp looking for breakfast/brunch. We were thinking cafe type food, but ended up finding a Chinese buffet. The variety was low, but the quality was high. Excellent meal (nothing like good vacation food). Back to he hotel for a quick rest, then we headed out to Belmont Park at Mission Beach. It's amazing how easy it is to find free parking in San Diego, even at the beach on Memorial Day weekend. It was a gorgeous day, perfect for the nice long walk along the beach we took, cheking out the houses. Gotta say, for beach front property, there were a lot of ugly houses. I guess we're spoiled by Newport, but I can't say I saw a single house along there that I liked.
We got to ride the Bid Dipper. I haven't ridden it in at least 11 years, CP and nirvanaman had never (Babette's unfortunately been having neck problems that even Big Thunder aggrivates, so a real deal woody would not have been a good idea). What a
great coaster that is. Short and rough as hell, but a great ride with some impressive turns. Nice to ride a different coaster now and again.
After the coaster, it was time for late afternoon drinks. Whoo boy, I wish I could remember the name of the place, but they had a roof-top bar with a great view..and something called the Category-5 hurricane. Mmmmmm. I believe, along with the hurrican mixer, it was rum, dark rum, spiced rum, coconut rum, and a floater of 151. Best $8 (well, $16 for the two I had
) I ever spent on alcohol at a bar.
From Belmont we went to Shelter Island to take a quick peek at the hotel we were
trying to reserve to see if we maybe wanted to come back another time. It wasn't quite as nice as the website made it seem, so that kinda made us happy about how things turned out. So from there, up to Point Loma for sunset, with a fitting stop at the military cemetary on the way. It's absolutely gorgeous up there, and we got to see a lovely sunset, once the sun emerged from the really thick cloud cover.
Back to the hotel for a quick change and off to Gaslamp for dinner. We had our sights set on a Spanish place on 4th we had seen the night before. It was after 9, but we got there and they said it was a 30 minute wait. Sucky, but the places around it were empty, so we figured that meant it must be good. So, to kill some time, we got a couple glasses of wine at a wine bar on 5th we had seen, then came back. Well, the manager sees us, starts screeming at his wait-staff to grab an extra chair or something, and then has a hostess lead us to our seat...at the bar/counter, right next to 2 open tables. We didn't particularly want to sit at a counter because it was loud and we wouldn't be able to talk. So we asked the waitress if we could have a table. She looked scared for her life as she told us that that's where the manager told her to seat us and we'd have to ask him. So Babette went and asked and he basically said, "Screw you, you didn't have resrevations." This guy was clearly an ass so we decided we didn't want to give him our money and left. That was annoying. It was almost 10PM, not many places were open. The only places that looked like they were still seating were a handful of overpriced Italian places. We can get Italian anywhere, so we weren't too thrilled, but bit the bullet and went in anyway...and boy were we glad we did. The place we ended up at was called La Strada, and we had a
fantastic meal. It really turned a lousy night into a good one. So we leisurely ate, then went back to 4th for one last drink at an Irish pub, then back to the hotel for a late night jacuzzi soak. Slept really well after that.
Monday morning, woke up and headed back to the jacuzzi. Then to lunch. Indian buffet, this time. And fantastic again. Just delicious. Not even "good food for a buffet." Just downright good food. But, it quickly wiped us out, so we dragged ourselves back to the room and took a nap while watching Shrek 2 before we checked out. We then went down to the Embarcadero and spent the next 4 hours at the Maritime Museum, which is a collection of 5 ships docked there including a Russian foxtrot class sub and the Secret, which is the ship from Master and Command. Fascinating stuff all around, and with the tour of the bay for $1 on a 1914 pilot boat, made for a great afternoon/early evening.
Our last stop was dinner at Kansas City BBQ, the location where the bar scene in Top Gun was shot. The place is a dive, the service sucked, and thanks to movie magic it's far smaller than it looks in the film...but the food was pretty damned good. A good way to end the trip. We were on the road home late enough that there was no traffic, which was nice and got us home at a reasonable hour, even.
So there ya have it, not bad for a spur of the moment trip. I know I'm missing a trip to the jacuzzi in there somewhere, but I can't remember when it was. Otherwise, that's the whole story.