San Diego, we'll be back soon

Jen and I took a brief road trip down to San Diego this past weekend. We've done the drive before, so it can be pleasant. Sadly, there are so many drivers in southern California these days that I actually was slowed to a stop in the freakin' carpool lane Sunday night. Oy.

Much rambling follows... :)

Saturday was nice. We drove down in the morning with little incident. We did stop once in Encinitas on the way for our trademark weird public art visit. Some artist has turned the yard surrounding his studio into a tribute to Rock and Rool music, with strange murals, folkart mosaics with broken mirrors and marbles, and lots of cut-out heads of music stars. It was trippy.

Our hotel room in the Super 8 on "Hotel Circle" wasn't ready, so we drove into downtown and parked fairly close to the waterfront for pretty cheap. What followed was a leisurely bar crawl. First, we stopped in the Yard House (20 minutes after it opened for the day) for a set of pints from San Diego local Ballast Point. We then made our way to the Karl Strauss Brewpub. Good lunch sandwiches and better beer: I got the 5 ounce sampler set of their six regular brews, and we made sure to also try out their abbey-style Red (super yummy) and their unfilter hefeweizen (almost like Germany).

We left and made our way to the downtown pier area. After a detour into the USS Midway aircraft carrier floating museum, we stopped at the Kansas City Bar-BQ, famous as the film location for "the sleazy bar scene in Top Gun". It was all we could ask for from a tourist trap.

After a rejuvinating stop at Cafe Lulu where we learned that the Sneaker Pimps last album is actually good, we made use of our Mug Club memberships at Rock Bottom. I finally qualified for my fifth visit "prize", although this turned out to be just a free pint glass. They used to give out gift certificates. Oh well. The stout was good. After tasty Cal-mex food that came back to haunt us a little later, we called it a night.

Sunday was more low key. We spent most of the day at Balboa Park: open parkland and a concentration of museums. We stuck to the free stuff mostly, like the desert cactus garden right next to the rose garden, and the world's largest outdoor pipe organ.

We left San Diego and meandered through parts of La Jolla, the sea-side suburb to the north that's home to the University of California, San Diego. Lots of upscale window shopping and good views of the Pacific. There is even a section of rocks known for their good sun-bathing...for sea lions, anyway. Nifty.

Then a hellish ride home on the evil freeways.

Oh, and we were celebrating the tenth anniversary of our relationship. To commemorate, we bought mood rings. I annoy Jen with how often mine just hangs around purple (calm) :)