We've also added some more pics to our photo album.
After the pandemonium at the KOA on Sunday we seriously considered leaving San Diego on Tuesday rather than waiting until Wednesday. However the holiday crowd thinned out pretty early on Monday and the place seemed to revert to a more calmer state. We left the KOA fairly early Monday morning with the intent of going to the San Diego zoo. We should have figured out that a holiday Monday at the zoo was going to be just that... a zoo! By the time we got there, the huge parking lot was mostly full and the lineups to get through the ticket entrances were long and full of many young kids and many strollers etc. We decided the $37 entrance fee each would be better spent on a future visit when we might go on a non-holiday weekend. Instead we did a drive around Fiesta Island which was really an eye-opener for us. It is a terrific outdoor recreation area in the middle of a large population metropolitan city. Very nice indeed.
We returned to the KOA early in the afternoon to find many folks had departed, so we decided that we would stay the planned third night. We then headed off to catch the "trolley", in Chula Vista, to go into downtown San Diego to Petco Field to catch the Padres take on the NY Mets. Interesting to note that the trolley cars appear to be the exact same cars as used on the Calgary LRT system. Nice easy and relatively quick ride dropped us right outside Petco and only a block or so from the downtown historic Gaslamp district. Gaslamp is full of restaurants and interesting shops and does really bustle prior to a Padres game.
Petco field is another really nice ball park. The design incorporated at least one historic warehouse building. Must have been a bit of an architectural challenge for that but it does look really neat.
The ball game itself was a bit of a blowout. It started in the bottom of the second when Jerry Hairston hit a mammoth grand slam home run and didn't let up with the final score being 18-6 for the Padres. The NFL San Diego Chargers should hope to score that many points in a game. After commenting to ourselves that we could not recall ever seeing a grand slam in a MLB game, that's now 2 games in a row. Let's see what the Dodgers and Braves can do later this week!
After deciding to stay the extra day in San Diego, on Tuesday it was more of an explorative type day. We drove around the South Park area north of downtown and east of Balboa Park (see the June 2010 issue of Sunset Magazine which has a great article covering this area). A cluster of small bungalows in the Craftsman architecture style, well maintained, a funky street scene with cool shops and restaurants with lots of young folks. Seems like an area undergoing a kind of resurgence. Homes well maintained, nice yards etc etc. We ate lunch at the Station Tavern & Burger place. Excellent burgers. It is an old trolley turn around station turned into a restaurant. Pretty neat place.
We also found a large bead wholesale place which sold to the public. Of course more beads were purchased! What did you think?
Desiring to avoid driving Los Angeles freeways at night we decided we would kill time until next Sunday when the Dodgers hosted the Braves for a day game. We had 4 days to kill. We left San Diego and just headed up the historic coast 101 highway through a number of smallish beach communities and ended up in Oceanside for 3 days. What a great place. Each day started with grabbing a coffee (ok, yes a Starbucks) and going for a walk along the endless white sand beaches watching the early morning surfers.
Thursday in Oceanside is farmers market followed by craft market day. A large section of a main street is closed to traffic and many booths are set up and many many folks get out for the day. Just a lot of fun. Oceanside is also the home to the California Surfing Museum. At this time they are showing a special exhibit called "WOW - Women on Waves" and it covers the history of women in the sport of surfing. Very interesting and an excellent exhibit.
Saturday was moving day to position ourselves to see the Sunday Dodgers game. We decided we should stay on the north side of Los Angeles so that on Monday we can continue north up the coast without having to endure any of the LA crosstown freeway traffic. So we set off up I-5 into the teeth of the storm. On numerous occasions the traffic across all 3-4 lanes came to complete standstill and we sat for several minutes. Then like the pig in the python, it cleared up and away everyone went only to hit the next snarl a few miles further ahead. Oh well, that's out of the way now anyway. We stayed at an RV park, with a great pool, in Valencia meaning that we had about an hours drive back in Sunday to see the game and the same length back out afterwards.
We had great seats for the game. We were in the "top deck" directly behind home plate.
The Dodgers came out on top 5-4 with a run in the bottom of the 11th. Three players we hoped to see ended up not starting at all. Chipper Jones for the Braves did not make an appearance at all. Manny for the Dodgers caught the ceremonial first pitch by Jose Lima's son and then pitch hit, later in the game, into an easy out. His appearance sure woke up the fans. Very popular guy. You can actually buy souvenir "Manny dreadlock wigs" :-)
Russel Martin (the Canadian connection) pitch hit a single in the 11th and ended up scoring the winning run so that was quite exciting. A few rows down from us in the stands sat a young man who clearly wins the "best hair award" for our trip...
In the eighth inning break at Dodger Stadium they play "keep on believing" (by Journey) and the fans do a karaoke like singalong. There is one guy they show on the giant scoreboard who apparently is an icon at this. He was just excellent and the fans loved it. There are a bunch of samples showing the guy on youtube... click
here to see a sample. There are many more.
With the Dodgers winning, our travel series now stands at 5 wins for the home team and 2 wins for the visiting team. With 3 games to go, the visiting teams will have to kick it up a notch!
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