San Diego-Beaches, Mountains, and….Possums?

I love San Diego, California. I love the weather, the food, the beaches, the mountains. I have been to San Diego a few times, and I have enjoyed it every time.

Our first trip to San Diego was to visit our daughter. In 2013, our daughter, Ally, was working for an organization based in San Diego, so she was living there. We wanted to visit her for a few days. Ally was able to join us for most of the activities. We had a great time at the San Diego Zoo.

The San Diego Zoo has a Skyfari Aerial Tram, which is a gondola lift and a great way to see the zoo.

Greg wasn’t sure about the ride, but could Ryan look much cooler? I thought it was fun.

We went to La Jolla and took a walk along the cliffs on the coast. It was so beautiful. La Jolla is an area that is fifteen miles north of downtown San Diego. It’s a beach town with cliffs overlooking the Pacific ocean, protected caves with seals and sea lions, boutiques and galleries. You can take a class to learn to surf, rent a bike, rent a kayak, or take a guided snorkeling tour. There are some luxury hotels in the area and several restaurants.

It was windy in San Diego, so my hair was really big the whole time we were there.

We visited the USS Midway, which is an aircraft carrier that people can tour in San Diego. This was one of Greg’s favorite activities of the trip. It was interesting, but I get “museumed” out pretty quickly, so I was ready to go way before he was. I think the kids were ready to go too.

We visited Coronado Island for a day. I loved Coronado Island. We visited the Hotel Del Coronado, walked through the town, and had a great meal. You can rent bikes and ride them around the island. If you’re feeling really energetic, you can ride the bikes all the way into San Diego. There is a park on the island called Spreckels Park. There are free concerts in the summer, plenty of places to have a picnic, and a large playground for kids. There is a Coronado Flower Festival held in the park in April, and local artists can display their art in the park.

Ally had to work on one of the days that we were there. The rest of us (actually, it was probably me talking the rest of them into it) decided to take the bus from near our hotel to a beach and a place to get acai bowls that Ally had recommended. In case you are unfamiliar with acai bowls, let me explain this delicious treat. Acai bowls are made with mashed and frozen acai juice, topped with your choice of a variety of fruits and toppings, such as granola, coconut, peanut butter, etc. I loved them so much that I learned how to make them at home. But they still taste better sitting near the beach.

It was too cold to swim, although there were some brave souls who were swimming, so we just walked along the beach. We came to a group of big rocks that jutted out to the water. Our choices were to walk in the water, which would have been really cold, climb over the rocks, or walk all the way up the beach to get around the rocks. Greg chose to walk all the way up the beach to get around the rocks. Ryan, being part billy goat, climbed up and over the rocks in no time. Sarah and I followed. The problem with this strategy was that I could see the waves getting bigger as they were coming in toward the rocks. I kept reminding Sarah that she needed to hurry because we were going to get wet. Sarah does not always do what I tell her to do. The water was getting closer and the waves were getting bigger. And then it happened. A huge wave came, going over our heads, and completely soaking me and Sarah from head to foot. I started yelling at Sarah to keep going, but Sarah froze and screamed, as another wave washed over us. Sarah’s cell phone was in her purse that she was carrying, and my phone was in the back pocket of my jeans. Both phones were ruined. Some kids who were swimming were laughing and pointing at us as we did the walk of shame off the beach. I was wearing jeans and a sweatshirt, so my clothes were really wet and heavy. We were determined to get our acai bowls, so we walked to the acai stand, bought our acai bowls, and found a place in the sun to shiver and eat. Then we went to the bus stop, sloshed onto the bus, and went back to our hotel. We had to call Ally to let her know that we were going to need a little extra time to get ready for dinner. Apparently, she had us on speaker phone, because when I finished explaining our experience, there was a moment of silence and then we heard laughter from several people. So glad we could provide everyone with some entertainment.

I went to San Diego a second time in 2018 for a conference. Greg went with me. My friend and colleague, Mary, was also attending the conference. Her husband, Ken, two of her adult sons, and her adult daughter, joined them for this trip.

Just prior to this trip, I had some sort of allergic reaction that made my face swell and break out in a red rash. This was the second time this had happened. The swelling and rash had gone down somewhat by the time we left for San Diego, but I was still a little red, swollen and self-conscious. At that time, I didn’t know what had caused the swelling, so I was a little nervous about the food I was going to eat on the trip. When I returned home from the trip, I spent some time with an allergist and found out what was causing the allergic reaction. Here is the story….

As a behavior analyst, I do ABA therapy with children in their homes. I was working on a program with one of my clients that required a variety of scents on cotton balls. To prepare for this program, I had used vanilla, vinegar, lemon juice, and some old perfume that I had. Greg had bought this perfume for me many years ago. I never liked the the smell of this perfume. I especially did not like the smell of this perfume when it was on me. It was called Cinnabar. Greg thought it smelled really good, so I told him he could wear it if he wanted, but I could not stand the smell. I guess I had never thrown the perfume away because I didn’t want to hurt his feelings. Anyway, it came in handy for this program, since it gave off a really strong scent. The allergy test indicated that I was allergic to cinnamon, which was in the perfume. So each time I added more perfume to a cotton ball, and then unknowingly touched my face, my face would break out in a rash and swell up. Needless to say, the perfume went into the trash. I considered including some pictures of my face when it was swollen, but they still scare me, so I thought I would spare my readers that experience. To give you a little idea of what you are missing, my face was covered in a red rash, my nose was very bulbous and my eyes were swollen into little slits. Very attractive.

Along with the swollen face, another incident happened prior to the trip. I was doing some last minute laundry the night before we were leaving for the trip. As I was putting a load in the washer, I heard a hissing sound. We have a cat, but she does not hiss a lot and that did not sound like her hiss. I turned around, and THERE WAS A POSSUM IN MY LAUNDRY ROOM!!! I am an animal lover, but possums creep me out. I know they have some useful qualities, but they need to do their thing OUTSIDE. This one was in MY laundry room, eating MY cat’s food, and he had the nerve to hiss at ME? Rude! I jumped about three feet in the air, let out a “yow!” and scrambled up the stairs, yelling for my husband, Greg. I’m pretty sure possum removal is his job. I told him there was a huge possum in our laundry room. In my mind, this possum was about 50 pounds, but in reality it was a junior possum, probably weighing about 10 pounds. Greg is definitely the calmer one in these types of situations (not that we regularly have possums in our laundry room), so he got the cat carrier, put some cat food in the back of it, and waited until the possum became curious enough to get in the carrier. He then re-homed the possum to some woods at the edge of town. I have to admit, I was a little jumpy each time I went into the laundry room for the rest of the night. I stood outside the room, reached in to turn the light on, and peeked in before I stepped a foot into that room. We didn’t see anymore possums that night, and we left to catch our flight to San Diego the next morning, confident that our house was possum free. Turns out, we were wrong.

I was too upset to think about taking pictures of the possum at the time, so I had to recreate the scene.

When we came home the next week, we noticed that our dog would just randomly bark when she was in the dining room. Then we started hearing noises under the dining room floor. We live in an older home, built in 1936, and we have a crawl space under the house. Apparently, there is a ventilation hole in the foundation covered with mesh and some creature had chewed through it, so the possums got into the crawl space. The little one in the laundry room had found a small hole in the retaining wall and had managed to squeeze himself through into the laundry room. We were pretty sure that a family of possums was living in our crawl space. I read that possums were afraid of dogs, so for a few days, I periodically stomped around the dining room, making barking noises, hoping to scare the possums so they would leave. The possums were not impressed. Greg, being the great possum hunter that he is, crawled into the crawl space and set some humane traps. He caught a mama possum and three more babies. The possums are now living the good life in the woods, and Greg has done some major repairs to the foundation of our house so that no other creatures decide to make our crawl space their home.

Anyway, back to San Diego. Other than the swollen face and the few more gray hairs due to the possum scare, we had a great time. This was the view from our hotel. Since it was a conference, we were staying in the conference hotel, which was like a Hyatt, Hilton, or something expensive that we would not normally stay in.

The hotel was near the Gaslamp district, which has some good restaurants and lots of places to shop. Nearby, there is Petco Park, where the San Diego Padres play their baseball games. We didn’t make it there this trip, but I’m sure Greg would love to see a ballgame there some day. If baseball is not your thing, Petco Park also hosts some great concerts.

I’m sure the hotel appreciated this image. I washed out my jeans one day and they were not getting dry hanging in the bathroom, so I hung them out the window. Am I a sophisticated, big city girl, or what?

Greg and Ken visited the USS Midway one day while Mary and I attended the conference. They stayed all day.

I have to admit, I’m glad I was at the conference on that day. But they had a great time. Actually, I think Greg and Ken had a good time all week. This conference is always pretty intense, so Mary and I spent most of our week in workshops and sessions. We did manage to get in a little fun, though.

We visited the Mt. Soledad National Veterans Memorial. This is considered one of the most unique veterans memorials in the US. It is the only memorial that honors veterans, both living and deceased, that served from the revolutionary war to current day.

We went to the San Diego zoo, again.

Mary and I went to Coronado Island one evening. I just love that place. It seems so peaceful and relaxed. Some day I’m going to go and stay in the Hotel del Coronado and just relax on the beach. That trip is on my very long list of places I want to go.

We booked a bike tour in La Jolla.

This was a great way to see that area. We biked on roads that overlooked the coast and we rode through some beautiful neighborhoods.

We went down to the coast and we were taken to an area that had a lot of sea lions. It was a lot of fun!

There was a restaurant across from our hotel called Kansas City Barbeque. A scene from the movie Top Gun was filmed in this restaurant. I like that movie, but Greg loves that movie. He wanted to eat in that restaurant several times while we were there. Greg also likes barbecue, a lot. It was fun at first, but I got a little tired of it by the third time we ate there that week. This picture shows a little of how my face was still red and swollen the first couple of days that we were there.

The third time I went to San Diego, it was for another conference. My friend and colleague, Amy, and I went this time. We went in February, and we almost froze to death. I’m not as big a fan of San Diego in the winter. The wind was so cold. We shivered while eating our acai bowls, again. But at least our clothes weren’t soaking wet this time.

We took a little time off of the conference and visited Coronado Island, of course. Staying in the Hotel Del Coronado and relaxing on this beach is still at the top of my list.

This trip taught me not to try to do this trip in the winter. I do not want to hang out on the beach in my winter coat. Amy really enjoyed the food on Coronado Island.

I recommend San Diego as a great place to visit. The weather in the summer is great, and there are plenty of things to do.

Tips:

1. Find more information about the San Diego zoo at https://zoo.sandiegozoo.org.
2. The Kansas City Barbeque restaurant does have good barbecue and it’s fun to look at all the Top Gun memorabilia. You can find the menu and more information at https://kcbbq.net.
3. I don’t remember the name of the bike tour company. Here are some that are available. http://www.viator.com, bikeandkayaktours.com, sandiegotoursandrentals.com.
4. Find more information on the Hotel del Coronado at https://www.hoteldel.com. There are regular hotel rooms and they also have villas, which look really nice. There is a fire pit on the beach and when we were there at night, they had a fire going for the guests.
5. If you live in an older home, you may want to routinely check the foundation to make sure there are no openings that critters can use to get into your laundry room.
6. Possums like cat food.
7. Possums hiss.
8. San Diego is a great place to visit, but be prepared to spend quite a bit of money on food and accommodations. It’s a very expensive place to live.
9. It’s free to visit the Mt. Soledad National Veterans Memorial. There are great views from there and there are lawns surrounding the memorial that would be great for a picnic.
10. Find a schedule of events at Petco Park at petcoparkevents.com.