West Coast And Hawaii Adventure Oct/Nov 17 - Day 3: San Diego - La Jolla

[meandmyboy]

Sunday 29th October 2017: Day 3 - San Diego - La Jolla

Link to Trip Report Index

Another bright and early start to the day thanks to good old jet lag! I have to say that's a nice bonus of travelling westward from the UK because it's great being able to start your day early and pack as much in. Normally I'd want to sleep in if I wasn't getting up for work! Also a bonus of travelling as a solo adult with a child and sharing a hotel room means that it's pretty easy and acceptable to fall asleep soon after they go to bed, which adds to the likelihood of waking early too!

Today the plan was to head to the La Jolla area so once we were up and ready we set off north. I enjoyed being based on Shelter Island - it felt really easy to get to the various places I wanted to go to and was close to lots of nice places to eat also. I highly recommend it and Humphrey's Half Moon Inn was a great place to stay.

As we headed northwards on I5 it occurred to me that not having roaming switched on on my mobile was probably a bad idea...what if we broke down and I couldn't call for help - leaving us stranded on the roadside. Soon we'd be headed to Los Angeles and I certainly didn't fancy that happening there. I decided to sort out a solution when we returned to the hotel this evening.

First stop of the day was in La Jolla village, for breakfast at Harry's Coffee Shop - a local favourite established in the 60s and based on the diners in New York with lots of booths and a long breakfast bar. We took a booth and I ordered the Bacon Oatmeal Pancakes with bacon and poached eggs on the side. The server brought me some of the house spicy salsa for the eggs which was lovely! Jacob had a huge waffle with bacon (and what looked like a jugful of syrup over the whole lot).

After we had stuffed our faces, we rolled ourselves out of the booth and back to the car (which we were able to park easily outside as it was a Sunday morning and early) and drove down the road a little bit to get close to La Jolla Cove where we could see the seals and sea lions.

We were fortunate to get a car parking spot really close to the cove, so we nabbed it and then walked down the short sloping road until we could cross over and reach the coast. First we enjoyed watching some of the powerful waves crashing into the beach area and then we made our way round the path to try and locate some seals or sea lions. We were lucky enough to see quite a few of them resting in a big pile on the rocks and some also swimming in the swell next to the rocks.

A highpoint of this part was seeing a man lie down on the edge of the rocks, he was trying to photograph the seals in the water I guess, but then this HUGE wave crashed into the rocks and surged up all over him, soaking him from head to foot. It was one of those moments that you just knew it was going to happen. As soon as I saw him lie himself down I said to Jacob, "Let's watch that man - he's going to get drenched in a minute or so", and then of course he did. And we didn't even have to wait very long for it!

After enjoying the sea lions for a while we headed back to the car and set off for the Birch Aquarium. We parked up and started walking towards the building when I spotted a sign warning people to stay on the footpaths because rattlesnakes make their home in this area! This gave Jacob a fright but we didn't actually see any and we made sure to stick to the path.

The aquarium wasn't that big but it had just enough to keep us both interested for a few hours. After buying our tickets we headed towards the tanks displaying sea creatures and plants from all along the Pacific coast of North America, right from up in Alaska down to Baja California and Mexico. We'd timed our visit well as the Kelp Tank Dive Show was just about to start, so we found a seat in front of the tank and got ready to watch.

The show is where divers go into the massive kelp tank and feed the animals and answer questions from visitors. It was really great to watch as we saw the diver feeding everything from colourful fish to leopard sharks to moray eels. One of the divers even found some shark eggs that had been recently been laid and hidden at the bottom of the tank - apparently it's called a mermaid's purse because they wrap it up in what looks like a bag made out of kelp/seaweed, so that it blends in and goes unnoticed.

After the show had finished we backtracked to look at some of the tanks we'd missed previously and then made out way outside to look at the tidepool exhibits. These were great and you could actually touch some of the creatures such as sea cucumbers, anemones and urchins. The sea cucumber was really soft and squishy despite looking hard and spiky, and the urchin was definitely spiky but when you pressed it gently it gave your finger a little 'hug' with it's spines. The anemones were really sticky and would find you finger when you put it near their tentacles and stick to it. It actually made me jump as I wasn't expecting it to do that!

At first Jacob was really scared and wouldn't touch anything. It took him quite a while to build up the courage to try, but eventually he was brave enough to touch the sea cucumber, and once he'd done that he wanted to touch the rest and really enjoyed it.

The view from the outdoor area of the aquarium looking out to the ocean and down the coast was stunning. You can even see whales passing by at the right time of the year (unfortunately we were a little bit early still for that). But we could see down the coast back to La Jolla Cove where we'd been that morning as well as people out surfing the waves.

We wandered round the other half of the aquarium but Jacob didn't really find that part very engaging so we headed outside to the interactive play area for children. This was really cool, with a water fountain that played music based on how children pedalled bikes. There were also a couple of large aquaplay sets, where you could change the flow of water by moving/adding boards and then run boats along the channels you'd made. Jacob enjoyed playing with this for quite some time.

By now we were starting to feel hungry again, so we left the museum and drove back to La Jolla Shores to go to The Cheese Shop and pick up some sandwiches to go. It was very busy along here, being a Sunday and it was hard to find a parking place. I had to drive round the block a couple of times until I found somewhere where I could parallel park. I'm normally pretty good at parallel parking but it was tricky doing it from the other side of the car for some reason!

As we walked to the Cheese Shop we passed this bar/restaurant that was decorated up for Halloween. With moving features and a werewolf in a cage that howled. It was amazing! For lunch I got their turkey, jack cheese and avocado on sourdough bread and Jacob had a cheese and ham kids sandwich. We also bought some drinks and crisps and then headed back to the car.

I drove us north from La Jolla Shores to the Torrey Pines Gliderport, where we walked to the clifftop and sat and ate our lunch in the covered seating area while we watched crazy people jump off cliffs with parachutes. I'm sure they were having fun but there's no chance on earth I'd do that (a skydive in New Zealand when I was in my 20s was enough for me!).

My sandwich was lovely (although huge!) but Jacob didn't really enjoy his. He'd forgotten that he doesn't really like American cheese and that American cheddar is not real cheddar! So I had to pick the cheese out from his sandwich and he just ate some of the bread and ham. Once we'd finished eating and got some photos of the gliders in action, we set off back towards San Diego.

Before heading to the hotel I decided to do a little detour to the Fashion Valley mall for a bit of retail therapy. I wanted to buy myself a new pair of Ugg boots after my trust pair got ruined by mud last winter. The sat nav took us to the mall with no bother and we were soon parked up and walking inside. It's a lovely mall actually as much of it is open air so it has a very pleasant feel as you wander around.

I eventually bought my new Ugg boots after trying on various styles and deciding to go with the really short ankle boot in grey this time for a change. Then we popped into Lush to pick out our bath bombs for our Christmas Eve box. It's a bit of a tradition I started on our first trip to Florida as we don't have a Lush store near us.

By this time we were flagging, so we decided to call it quits and head back to the hotel. Jacob really wanted to go in the pool again but it was a little late and cool by now and I had plans to go out for dinner this evening so I didn't want us to be all wet and bedraggled again. So I had to disappoint him. Also for me, I just don't find going to the pool with my son (who can't swim) very relaxing as I can't take my eyes off him for a second, so really I was quite relieved to have an excuse!

We got back to the hotel and offloaded our shopping and relaxed in the room for a little while. I caught up with emails and a bit of work while Jacob watched TV and played with his Lego set from the plane. I also took the opportunity to give my dad a call over Skype as I saw he was online.

Once I finished my call I thought back to my worry from earlier about not having a usable phone in case of us breaking down and decided to do something about it. So before we headed to the restaurant for dinner I detoured via a local T Mobile shop and picked up a Tourist Plan SIM card. For $30 you get calls, texts and data for 3 weeks. Sorted!

For dinner tonight we were headed to the Liberty Station area to go to the Corvette Diner. Corvette Diner is definitely an experience. It's LOUD and fun, with the staff dressed up in costume and regularly bursting into song to wish diners Happy Birthday. With it being Halloween they were all wearing spooky costumes instead of their usual 50's diner costumes. Although we enjoyed the atmosphere of Corvette Diner I think it was a bit overwhelming for Jacob - he (and I actually) aren't great in really noisy situations.

We enjoyed our meal though - we both had milkshakes to start with, I had The Elvis (Peanut Butter, Banana and Marshmallow) and Jacob had Chocolate). These were delicious but very sweet and filling. Probably wasn't such a good idea to have these before out meal! Then Jacob had a hot dog and I had the Buffalo Blues chicken burger in a hot wings sauce with crumbled blue cheese, with sweet potato fries.

Right before we left a man came to our table and offered to make a ballon animal for Jacob which made his night. He'd been watching the man go from table to table all the while we'd been there and was getting upset as he thought he was going to miss out, so it was perfect timing. The man made Jacob a fab dinosaur ballon animal and we were able to leave without a meltdown - bonus!

We headed back to the car and drove back to our hotel. Jacob fell asleep in the car he was so tired so as soon as we were in our room I got him ready for bed and settled him down. I stayed up as long as I could keep my eyes open, which wasn't that long actually! I think I was asleep by 9pm, but it had been a busy day so that's my excuse.



To be continued... (I'm updating while we are still on the trip so will do as much as I can when I can, so please bear with me!)

[Melbatb]

Another great day - you did a lot! The aquarium sounds really good!

Dinner at the diner seemed to be good - milkshakes are a bit of a double edged sword - delicious but so very filling!

Thanks for taking the time to write this up! Loving hearing about San Diego - less than 7 weeks until we go!

[meandmyboy]

Originally Posted by Melbatb

Another great day - you did a lot! The aquarium sounds really good!

Dinner at the diner seemed to be good - milkshakes are a bit of a double edged sword - delicious but so very filling!

Thanks for taking the time to write this up! Loving hearing about San Diego - less than 7 weeks until we go!

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I loved San Diego! Particularly Coronado Island which I would happily move to tomorrow if I had $4m+ to spend on a house! You're going to have a great time