Couple of Days on the Coast

Even though we only had a couple of days, my mom and I decided that we still wanted to visit both San Diego and Los Angeles and not leave one of them out.  So, we left Yuma and headed due West on I-8 to San Diego.

It’s always a thrill to come over the last set of mountains and be bombarded with sensory overload after days of minimal, quiet desert scenery.  In past trips, I had driven directly from Chicago, so the time in the desert was minimal.  This year, being in Arizona for 6 weeks before hitting the West Coast really made made that last hop over the mountains quite a change—water! (the ocean), lush green grass and trees! Oh my God, look at the smog and all those cars!!!  Well, I didn’t say all the sensations were pleasant, did I?!!!

I decided to try a Passport America RV park just 5 miles from downtown San Diego, Mission Bay RV Resort.  It had some hot and cold reviews online and I wasn’t quite sure what it’d be like, but it actually was quite a nice facility within a large, beautiful city park that encompasses much of Mission Bay.  Besides a great location, their PA rate was only $25 a night for full hook-ups—can’t beat that!

After getting parked, we headed to Old Town for a late lunch at a colorful, festive outdoor Mexican restaurant,

and these were the size of their “skinny” Margaritas!

After lunch, Mom shopped a bit and we then took a quick drive through Balboa Park.  Saw some Navy recruits out for an afternoon jog

and drove past the wonderful museum architecture.  I really wish we could have spent more time to fully explore the park, the zoo, and all of these museums—they looked fabulous!

We decided to go over to Coronado Island just as the sun was setting—amazing views from the tall bridge over the harbor!

The Coronado Hotel was as lovely as ever,

but tonight we had one thing and one thing only in mind….ice cream!  We first were lured to the glowing blue neon of Mootime with its lifesized statues of Elvis and a cow out in front of the store.

Mootime had some tempting flavors and large heaping scoops, but another shop around the corner seemed a bit more tantalizing—a gelato shop!

The scoops were smaller, but oh so good!   We thought about revisiting the Irish Pub that my mom had been to during her last visit to San Diego a few years ago, but decided to savor the lingering tastes of gelato on the drive home instead.

 

The next day, we headed up the coast to Long Beach to stay at Golden Shore RV Park located right downtown on the harbor.  I had stayed there last year and since it was the closest RV park to where we’d be meeting friends for lunch, it just made sense to stay there again.  Nothing had changed there since my last post…we even were assigned to the same site! 

We met my mom’s oldest friend (from grade school!) and her husband for a terrific seafood lunch on the other side of the harbor at Ports of Call in San Pedro.  Lots of laughs and great conversation.  Nina is a retired professional writer and has a great blog that she updates nearly every day, Word of Mouth.  We sure hope to see Nina and Richie again if they make it to Chicago this summer!

After lunch, we watched a few ships come and go from the huge Long Beach harbor, and then brought Nina and Richie back to the RV park to meet Millie and tour Mom’s traveling wheels. 

The harbor is massive, with thousands of 40’ containers stacked up high on dozens of docks awaiting ships or trucks to transport their goods.  No doubt that George Carlin’s famous comedy routine about Americans’ obsession with consuming and storing ever-increasing amounts of “Stuff” may have been inspired from these very docks!