So Cal Road Trip - Day 9 - Saturday May 14th – Balboa Park, Shopping, Cheescake Factory

[georgemac]

Miles driven today 50 miles
Miles driven so far 950 miles



Well woke up to a cloudy and cool La Jolla with forecast for cloud all day and Max 17 degC.
We had a longish lie today, and never left hotel until around 10.30 ish.
On the news found out Billy Joel was playing tonight at Petco Park baseball ground, how did I miss that during planning? It never came up in any of the whats on pages I checked. I had found Beyonce was playing in LA tonight, but tickets were all very expensive on resale sites, and would have been too much rejigging of plans, but if I had found Billy Joel here – I would definitely have booked this.
There were plenty tickets for sale, all on resale sights, which I deplore, and I have always swore I will never use (have in the past paying well over face value), and advising on news to pre book parking as likely to be so busy, so although tempted, decided to give it a miss, although even on resale decent seats were $150 and in the gods $45. I gave it a miss basically due to the short notice, and not sure about where the venue etc was, not sure how to get there, park car etc, but on reflection huge mistake – I should have just gone for it.
We headed to Balboa Park, and eventually got parked, very busy. Parking is free. Here was us from the NE of Scotland in Southern California in May and had jackets on in the morning. Grey May seems to be here.
We went in to The Air and Space museum, no prior planning. So the deal was $20 each for 1 museum, $45 each for up to 5 museums, or $55 each for a 7 day pass for all 17 museums. As the museum looked quite small, we just paid for this one. It was OK, nothing special to be honest, and we had a bite to eat and a coffee in their eating area, which was outside with catering from outside catering unit, and to be honest was quite poor.
We finished there and jumped on the free trolley, and got off after a few stops, it was very noisy with whooping and hollering as we went round every corner!
We had a good walk around most of the rest of the pretty park, and never visited the two free museums or any of the other paid ones.
The park was very busy, and a lot of setting up for bands who were playing later at night. There were loads of kids activities going on, stalls and some buskers and performers. I think locals get annual membership for $129 so good deal.
I enjoyed watching the low flying planes over our head approaching the airport.
We are not Culture Vultures, and Balboa Park probably more suited for those that are, and very nice area for family picnic.
We headed down to the Westfield Shopping Plaza in Gaslamp, where you can have 3 hrs free parking with validation, you don't even have to buy anything, just put ticket in validation machine.
But shopping plaza and us and not buying anything does not happen. Into Macy's we go and come out with 2 bags full. This weekend they have a promotion, donate $3 to their vets charity, I got your 6, and you get 25% discount, except on Levis which never seem to be discounted.
I bought a straw sun hat, hope I get some sunny weather to use it!
We headed out and had a walk round Gas Lamp Quarter, which was quite quiet I would say, and very nice area. Singer in the Plaza area, and very good.
Lots of bars and restaurants, and some nice cars being driven around, but again not really our type of area. Few homeless going about, never saw any in La Jolla, but obviously an issue in USA. Quite sad to see, mainly older people.
We then got in car about 4, and drove along the front past the USS Midway and out to the end of the Marina area and back. We stopped in a parking area for some photos, and if weather had been nicer may have walked a bit.
We then headed for the Fashion Valley Shopping Mall, reason Cheescake Factory. There is one at Seaport village where we were but looked very busy.
Parked up at an also very busy Fashion Valley, and walked round to Cheescake Factory, were there 16.50 and advised 40 minute wait, extremely busy, but took our buzzer and headed to Bloomingdales, where a few more purchases made. Mainly birthday and Christmas presents for children, clothes we cannot get in UK.
We were seated at 17.40, and had a lovely meal as usual, wife having Thai Salmon, I had Shrimp Pasta and we shared a key lime Cheescake. Think it was around $70 including tip. Very busy restaurant.
We pondered going back to Balboa park to hear some of the music, but we decided to head back to the hotel, as we were thinking about going back to Palm Springs to see the sun.
Back to the hotel just before 8, and struggled to find a parking space, lots for compacts, but not many for SUV, bit peeved at this when paying $25 per night for parking.

So we considered checking out the next morning – thinking I could do this with no penalty - and heading back to Palm Springs, but the forecast is for high winds and sandstorms in the desert, and very difficult driving conditions. Also the Palm Springs hotel price now about £170 per night, there were others cheaper, but that was a nice hotel, but the high winds and sandstorms were the deciding factor to stay put.

Just have to make the best of it here for our last few days, some sunshine is forecast, but mainly cloudy.

We also noticed in La Jolla culture is not so much shorts and T shirt like Florida and everywhere else, people dressed a little smarter, and more in jeans due to temps. Today I had opted for shorts, shirt and nicer looking trainers, but my feet missed my Merrels!

Also the hotel restaurants very busy tonight when we returned.

[georgemac]

Photobucket links removed - will try and update later

[florida girl]

Shame about the weather.

[tocpe321]

Looking forward to seeing Balboa Park.

[amf]

Great photos of Balboa Park We enjoyed the Air and Space Museum a few years back but as you say, it's quite small so we won't be visiting again when we return in a few weeks time. We enjoyed wandering about the park. There are so many lovely photo opportunities and we took lots of photos with the kids.