Mission Beach, San Diego October 9-16

 

 We had a long drive to Mission Beach from Monterey with lots of traffic with many huge highways and lots of highway changes. Mark did the bulk of the driving which was quite harrowing - so many multi lane highways!

 

We moved into a small studio apartment in a new part of the bay to us - 3578 Bayside Walk. The parking lot is small! We drove to Ralph's and got enough food to start our week as we were too tired to shop more than that.

Day One

We took a nice walk and settled into the apartment.

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For lunch, we drove up to Convoy Street to go to a Chinese restaurant, Golden Dynasty, that Mark looked up on Yelp. It was delicious - we had pea greens (a new dish for us and we liked it) and fried chicken.

We got tickets for a matinee at Old Globe Theatre to see a new musical, The Gardens of Anuncia. We had to show our vaccination cards, a first for us and masks, of course, were required. We liked everything about the play. The set, for one, was amazing. The play was written by Michael J. LaChiusa and based on the life of his friend, an Argentine actress/choreographer, Graciela Daniele. It was staged by flashbacks by an older Anuncia who's on the way to get a life-time Emmy. (true) It tells the story of how she was raised by three strong and independent women - her mother, her aunt and her grandmother during the time of the Perons. The dancing was amazing, the songs were so well done and beautifully sung. The actors had impressive resumes. We were very impressed and hope that it goes to Broadway. 

On the way home, we stopped at a pasta restaurant on Tourmaline St, got uncooked homemade pasta with two sauces and made it at home and sat on our patio. 

Day Two

We started our day with a nice walk along the bay - and saw several dolphins which we heard is quite unusual for the bay. At 10:30 we headed to visit Frank and Linda Morral in La Jolla. We always have wonderful conversations and we also had an in-room lunch with them as their dining hall is not yet open to outside visitors. Later we took them for a tour of Mission Beach down to the end, where they had never ventured. Then, we sat at "our" apartment's patio and chatted more. Linda and I took Rojo for a walk along the bay.

Day Three

Today we spent at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park in Escondido, about 40 minutes north. It was the perfect day for the park - quite empty with gorgeous weather. It involved a lot of walking, but we also took one shuttle and a tram around the African savannah section. We saw a cheetah, lots of varieties of deer/antelope, several elephants including at least 3 youngsters, one lion, 2-3 gorillas, one tiger, giraffes, rhinos, kangaroos. Getting photos was not easy as there are many long shots a lots of fencing. We lingered at the bird exhibits. We ate lunch in the park and made a day of it. We walked about 3 miles in the park. Afterwards, we sat on "our" patio and watched the high school crew teams practicing across the bay.

Day Four

We started with a walk on the other part of the inner bay where we stayed a few years ago. We also got our flu shots at a nearby CVS. We had tacos for lunch before Barbara had a Zoom Cemetery Commission Meeting.

We met Frank and Linda and went to the dog park on Fiesta Island. On the way home, we visited Soledad Mountain Memorial which has a huge concrete cross that was the subject of constitutional controversy about a religious symbol being on federal land. It was solved when a private group bought the part with the cross. There are over 3500 memorials to veterans on the monument. The mountain has one of the best views of the San Diego area.

Day Five

We met Frank and Linda for lunch at White Sands. Linda and Barbara took a nice walk along the La Jolla shores with Rojo while Mark and Frank talked theater. It's always great conversation. Then we said goodbye to them. We came "home" and took another walk along the ocean side of Mission Beach and had dinner on our patio. We also had a quick video call with Christian and Nick in Charlotte.

Day Six

Another beautiful day.  I had a Zoom meeting for the Historical Commission at 7 a.m. (time zones!) Afterwards, we took the car to the car wash - not something we do often. Then we drove up to Cabrillo Point- so beautiful, where we had a cup of coffee and wandered around.

In the afternoon we met Lindsay Goldsmith at the Communal Cafe and Bakery which was also attached to a flower shop. Lindsay is in an intensive, accelerated nursing M.A. program. It was lovely to see her. She is so evidently passionate about her profession.

Then we came "home," packed up and ate fish tacos on our veranda.