San Diego

San Diego has long been one of my favorite cities. So when I decided to spend my sabbatical in Los Angeles, I promised myself that I would visit San Diego before returning to Utah. In mid-July, I fulfilled that promise. A colleague and I drove down to San Diego for a four day adventure that came to be known as "Thrill Quest San Diego".

We arrived in San Diego around noon and went directly to the Birch Aquarium, which is affiliated with the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UCSD. The Birch Aquarium is in beautiful La Jolla, high up on a hill overlooking the Pacific. When you arrive, the first thing you see are large fountains with gigantic whale sculptures in the middle of them, giving the illusion of whales leaping out of the water. Super cool. The aquarium itself is nice, although it's not in the same league as more well-known aquaria (e.g., Baltimore, New England, etc). My favorite resident was an octopus that excitedly swam around its enclosure for a very long time. I was hypnotized watching this odd-looking creature with a bulbous body and many long tentacles glide so gracefully through the water. Click here to see pictures from the Birch Aquarium.

Next we went to Balboa Park, which is a large, verdant park in the middle of San Diego that houses many museums and gardens. Balboa Park attracts visitors of all kinds, including this typical California dog travelling by segway. We walked around for a while, exploring a rose garden and cactus garden, and then listened to Cajun music at a summer evening music event. Click here to see pictures from Balboa Park. From there we went to Old Town, which looks like the set of a western movie with old storefronts and buildings. A great place to walk around.

Day 2 was Sea World, which may be my favorite touristy place on the planet. Sea World has so many animal shows that it is impossible to see them all in one day, but we gave it a good try. ;) Of course we saw the obligatory killer whale show, which now features four killer whales! We also saw two different dolphin shows (the daytime show includes a pilot whale as well, and the evening show features pyrotechnics high above leaping dolphins), a sea lion & otter show, and a Pets Rule show that features many (and I mean many!) trained dogs, cats, birds, pot-bellied pigs, and other performing pets. Yes, you read that right, there were trained cats. :) Sea World boasts that most of the animals were rescued from shelters, which is exceedingly cool.

Sea World also has a wide array of zoo-like animal exhibits, which are also wonderful. My favorite exhibit was a large pool with 10-15 bottlenose dolphin that you can feed and touch. It is a magical, almost spiritual experience to pet a dolphin while looking it right in the eye. I could have stayed at that pool all day (and nearly did ;). I also learned that Pacific bottlenose dolphins (which were my neighbors in Marina del Rey) are darker in color than their Atlantic bottlenose cousins. The pool contained both species and you could clearly see the difference.

In addition to animal shows, Sea World has a Cirque de la Mer show that features acrobats doing amazing feats in, around, and over Mission Bay. The show was terrific. My favorite part featured a parade of acrobats who, one after the other, did some incredible stunt on a trapeze and then leaped off the trapeze and dove into Mission Bay. Click here to see tons of pictures from Sea World. After we exhausted Sea World (and it exhausted us), we went to Old Town again to have dinner and take another quick tour of the old western buildings.

No trip to San Diego would be complete without a visit to their world famous zoo, so Day 3 was zoo day. I'd been there several times before, but it had been many years since my last visit. The zoo has a wonderful reptile exhibit, errrr, make that reptile exhibits. Of course, they have a Komodo Dragon, or should I say, a Land Crocodile. There are multiple reptile buildings (about 5!), including a "Turtletorium" (I love that word!! It's not quite as good as "Platypusary" though. :), as well as many outdoor reptile enclosures where lizards and tortoises can bask in natural sunlight. Hands down the best reptile exhibit of any zoo I've been to. Another must-see exhibit at the San Diego Zoo are the pandas, including an adorable young panda.

Toward the end of the day, I was dejectedly about to admit defeat in my unsuccessful attempt to find the wolf exhibit when I stumbled onto an evening animal show that featured (surprise!) a beautiful gray wolf. :) When the wolf was a pup, the zoo brought in a golden retriever to keep it company, and now the two are best friends. (Interestingly, the dog was rescued from a shelter, where it had been given up by its owner because he had too much energy and needed lots of space, which he now has at the zoo.) At an earlier show, zookeepers told a similar tale of a cheetah who was raised with a dog, and the cheetah will only come out on stage if the dog comes along. Apparently the cheetah is shy and will hide when it's by itself, but if the dog is there then the cheetah feels more comfortable. I was fascinated that the zoo seems to be using dogs as companions for zoo animals! The evening show with the wolf also featured an animal that I'd never seen before: a New Guinea singing dog, who gave a virtuoso performance. :) Click here to see a ton of pictures from the San Diego Zoo. After the zoo, we drove to the Gaslamp District for dinner and briefly explored downtown San Diego.

Day 4 began with a visit to Point Loma and Cabrillo National Monument, which has historic significance to San Diego. But I confess, I wanted to see it because it is a famous whale-watching site in San Diego and I was curious to see how it compared to my whale-watching site in Palos Verdes. Point Loma is nice and has a terrific view over the Pacific, but there was a lot of boat traffic due to its proximity to the harbor and a Navy base. Palos Verdes is definitely superior, in terms of the natural surroundings at least. :)

Next we returned to Balboa Park to see the Natural History Museum. The museum was better than I expected, given that it is relatively small. I even managed to find a whale. :) If you're in Balboa Park, it's definitely worth spending an hour or two there. The museum had an interesting exhibit about water usage that included aerial pictures of cities that are smack dab in the middle of a desert and have no business being there. The pictures of Palm Springs, CA and Tucson, AZ were particularly striking. There was also a special exhibit on African art that was superb. Many of the sculptures represented symbols or legends of the Shona people; the sculptures were beautiful and the legends were fascinating. My favorites were the hippo, which represents the spirit of shyness, and Eye of Mwari, which represents the God Mwari who sees but does not judge.

Finally, we headed downtown to see the Phantom of the Opera at the San Diego Civic Theatre, before hitting the road back to LA. It was a great performance, and a very nice way to end the trip.

I feel obligated to end with a public service announcement: San Diego has the worst road signs of any city I've been to! If you go, bring maps, and lots of them. Some side streets take you onto the interstate without giving you any warning at all! At one point I came to believe that every street was simply an entrance ramp to I-5. Although when you want to get on I-5, you can't. You might be right around the corner from a freeway entrance but there won't be a single sign telling you to turn. No joke, that actually happened -- I had to peer around a corner myself to see that that there was an entrance ramp just a block away. I love ya San Diego, but geesh, hire someone to make a few road signs, will ya?!