In a nutshell, we've spent a lot of time at the beach the last two days. After giving the kids a taste of Pacific waves at the end of their first full day in San Diego, they put going back to the beach at the top of their list yesterday. While Donna and I might be interested in exploring the historic gas lamp district or checking out Coronado island, the kids would have none of it. We had to get back to the beach yesterday before doing anything else.
Because the shores are pretty rocky in the La Jolla area, we decided to try the Mission Beach area which is a more traditional wide, sandy beach.
Although we lathered on 30 spf and higher sunscreen, we still got too much sun after spending 2 1/2 hours in the early afternoon sun. The kids had a blast on the new boogie boards that we will need to add to our cargo on the way back home. We decided to pack it in in time to catch low tide at Bird Rock which is just offshore where we are staying. During low tide, you can walk out to Bird Rock and check out the tide pools around the rock or just climb. It is a very rocky and at times slippery walk, so we had to be pretty careful.
Donna and I finally made it into the gas lamp area of downtown last night as we all enjoyed dinner at a sushi restaurant and then made it to Donna's favorite yogurt place - Pinkberry - for dessert. We have gone to great lengths on this and other vacations to visit Pinkberry when it is available.
Today started out as a lazy day. Donna and I were lamenting that it was our last full day. While we have been gone for about 2 weeks, and while I'm sure it will be great to be home in our own beds soon, this has been such a great trip and full of new adventures and learning about our great country. It's also been such a great time of family bonding.
Everyone was feeling the effects of the sun from yesterday - thankfully no one burned too badly though. We decided to go check out La Jolla Shores in street clothes. It's my understanding that it was considered a top 10 beach in the world by one publication. The term "beach" is used somewhat loosely here as it is very rocky with cliffs and rocky shorelines, but there were a couple of beach areas. It is also renowned as a diving park. In addition to the many seals sunning themselves on the nearby rocks, we saw some swimming amongst the people snorkeling off the beach. This truly is a stunning beach and well worth going just to watch all the activity.
The kids decided they wanted to have one last foray into the ocean and that they had not yet reached their sun limit, so a little later this afternoon, Donna and I decided it might be good to try the beaches on Coronado island. I don't believe Coronado is truly an island because it has a long thin stretch of land that connects it back to the mainland south of San Diego and not too far from the Mexican border. We actually drove this thin stretch of land all the way south to Imperial Beach. This beach was just as good as Mission Beach in my opinion but not very touristy or crowded. It was actually easy to find parking right by the pier whereas on Mission Beach the day before, it probably took us about 30 minutes of driving around to find a spot that was, incidentally, a very long walk to the beach.
I finally decided to swim today. The water wasn't as cold as I feared. It was I'm sure just a typical surf, but some of those waves were doozies. I'm glad that my kids were for the most part content with catching the already crested waves near shore rather than catching them in the surfing zone where they were breaking. There was a pretty strong side current today that was a little concerning, so I was relieved when we decided to call it quits.
We ate at El Topatio for some run of the mill Mexican food at Imperial Beach and then drove back for one last look at the famous hotel on Coronado island. Then it was back to the condo to begin our packing for the trip home.
Runcie and I will be dropping off the girls at the airport around 8:00 - 8:30 and then we will be on our way home the old-fashioned way . . . we will be driving back. We plan to make it to Tombstone, AZ tomorrow to check out the OK Corral. We will miss the girls terribly but are looking forward to some guy time where we can do some guy stuff and actually listen to some guy music, etc. The first couple of days will probably feature Wyatt Earp and then William Bonney aka Billy the Kid history and stomping grounds.
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