The Del, Automotive and Air and Space Museums

The last couple of days of Mike and Sherri's visit continued to be a whirlwind of touring the Coronado and two museums in Balboa Park. We also found neat places to eat and played guys against the girls euchre. I'm sad to report that the results of the euchre playing was not to my liking at all. The girls kicked butt!

The Hotel del Coronado was built in the 1880's when it was the largest resort hotel in the world. The Victorian style building is still the second largest wooden structure in the United States.

Nanc, Mike and Sherri rubbing shoulders with the upper crust at the Del. Even though it is over 125 years old the building is very beautiful. Checking room prices they ranged from only $319 to $1199 a night. I'm liking my bed in Opus a lot better than those prices.

One of the original ballrooms with a neat vaulted ceiling. We were going to have lunch at the Del, but were scared away by the prices. Mike and Sherri needed a snack and had two small bags of chips and one diet Coke, $12.00.

The sand man on the beach had a couple beautiful sand sculptures. This one to celebrate the upcoming Valentine's Day.

This one just a neat sand castle.

Happy Valentine's Day from Mike and Sherri at the Coronado.

Nanc and I getting ready for Valentine's Day. The hotel is sure worth a visit, being one of the classic wooden Victorian structures in the US.

Another day we visited a couple more San Diego sights. The San Diego Automotive Museum has a great collection of old cars and motorcycles.

The special exhibit at this time was first responders vehicles through the ages.

Part of the motorcycle exhibit was the bike the Fonz rode on Happy Days. Very cool just like the Fonz.

They had a neat display of Indian Motorcycles including a new 2016 model.

Mike really liked the this old Studebaker because it was the first car he owned.

The most unique car in the museum is Louie Mattar's Fabulous Car. It is a 1947 Caddy that Louie spent $75,000 modifying in order to drive non-stop, 6,320 miles, from San Diego to New York and back in 1952. There were three drivers, a trailer with water and fuel (that they refilled on the fly at airstrips), a TV, mobile phone, shower, toilet and a system to change a flat tire without stopping. In 1954 he drove non-stop from Anchorage to Mexico City. Here is a link to a YouTube video about the Louie and the car.

An old midget racer. I think this is like the one our friend Tom's dad had years ago. The automotive museum is a must see in San Diego for anyone who likes old cars and bikes.

The San Diego Air & Space Museum has a great collection of aircraft from early planes to space crafts and modern military planes. At the entrance is a Convair YF2F-1 Seadart and a Lockheed A-12.

The Apollo 9 capsule used in 1969. It was the third manned flight in the Apollo program and spent 10 days in Earth's orbit testing equipment for the flight to the moon later that year.

Great display of WWI planes, You can see famous WWI pilot Snoopy.

This exhibit shows the many commercial airlines through the years. It is hard to believe there were so many in just over 100 years of flight.

A McDonnell Douglas F-4J/S Phantom II.

We did a 4-D (the seats move) movie. They were a couple cartoon shorts that were a lot of fun. Sherri was not happy that she was not able to get a quick nap because the seats were shaking.

Model of an aircraft carrier that was part of a display of WWII naval aircraft. The air and space museum has a nice collection of aircraft, but does not come close to others we have seen across the country. 

Look at those smiles when we dropped them off at the airport to send them back to the winter weather in WashPA. You should have seen the smiles on our faces. Just kidding, we loved having Mike and Sherri and we all had a FUN filled week.