Week 28 - San Diego ("America's Finest City")

Hello Family and Friends,

I must begin with picking a fight with San Diego's nickname, "America's Finest City". It is a good city with some nice vibes, but it is still on the west coast and in California of all places. We all know by now that the east coast definitely has the better cities. I mean the west coast, in general has some issues. Brett and I have developed a saying, "That's why the west coast can't have nice things". There are just some things that are distinctively west coast, and are worse than the east coast. For example, the Wal-Mart's only have one door. They have such an issue with theft that they ferry all traffic in and out through one door. It is such a pain to have to walk all the way to the other side of the store just to exit.

The homelessness on the west coast is as bad as the news makes it (but it is distinctly in various areas and not others) and while Oregon is it's greatest offender California is a close contender. We didn't ride public transportation in LA because the word on the street is that the majority of its riders are unstable and violence is common. Also there are entire neighborhoods of homeless in tents, campers, sleeping bags and cardboard constructions, both in the downtown and the suburbs. We have been to all the major east coast cities and have seen plenty of homeless. But only in California did I witness the homeless digging in the trash can and bathing in the water fountains. All cities, even those on the east coast have to manage their homeless, but California's homeless don't seem to have any resources. Brett says that maybe because the weather is more temperate, Californians don't feel the need to offer as many shelters.

On another note something that we noticed specific to California is that they will have these signs along the exits on the highways that state, "No services". We were so puzzled by these signs. We learned that it meant there are no public facilities such as restaurants, gas station or hotels. However if there is no sign then there are services, but there is no indication as to what is there. There is no indication to whether there is lodging, gas or food, much less what type. Just if you don't see a "No service" sign, then assume there are "services". I mean come on California. You can't be having people drive your interstate blind and then call your city, "America's Finest City".

I mean at one gas station there was even instructions on how the gas hose works. Really California, you have to explain to people how the gas pump works. And this is why can't have nice things.

Instructions on how the gas pump hose works.

Anyway, I digress, because San Diego did have a lot going for it. I would say that it was my favorite California city. We stayed in the historic "Gaslamp Quarter" and it was giving me some Philadelphia vibes: It smelled like urine and there were a plethora of quality food options. Every meal we had was within a block of our hotel.

Our first adventure away from our hotel was Legoland. My favorite part of Legoland was Miniland USA. They have lego models of cities. I love the details of miniature cities. I could spend hours looking at what each figurine is doing within the city. And now that we have traveled the states quite a bit, I recognized almost all the cities. It was really neat to see models of places we have actually been.

The Lincoln Memorial, Washington Monument, Jefferson Memorial, BigBus Tours and even the Capitol to the distant right are iconic buildings of the National Mall in Washington, DC.

A better view of the lego Capitol complete with tourist and an animated marching band.

The lego version of an iconic fountain in Central Park in Manhattan, New York.

A lego rendition of San Francisco complete with its hills and cable cars.

San Francisco Golden Gate bridge lego style.

The lego version of the Venetian, which is the hotel we stayed at in Las Vegas.

Lego style of the Gaslamp Quarter where we stayed while visiting San Diego.

Atlas was big enough to enjoy some of the rides.

Atlas and Mommy at "skipper school".

We even got to see the Legoland parade. It was really cute.

Atlas watching one of the floats of the Legoland parade.

We also explored the lego castle hotel...

Lego art in front of the castle hotel.

...where Atlas got to be king....

Atlas on his lego throne.

...and play with all the legos.

Atlas working on putting legos together in the lego pit.

Our next great San Diego adventure was the San Diego Zoo. We rode our bikes through Balboa park to get to the zoo. We saw lions...

A huge lion statue outside of the San Diego zoo.

...tigers...

The tiger pacing hungrily around dinner time.

...and bears, oh my!

The keeper told us that napping is this panda bear's favorite activity.

The apes were feeling playful.

Right after I took this picture the younger ape walked right over to the glass and started giving us kisses.

The Giraffes were standing tall.

The giraffe enclosure.

Of course there were many more animals to see, but these were some of my favorite. I even ran into a student who is currently a Sophomore at my alma mater, Bowdoin. It's always a treat to run into another Bowdoin student.

Well, it's time to say goodbye to California and the west coast. We are officially heading back east. We will make a couple of major stops on the way. but we are now officially on our return trip.