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. 

San Diego Whales and LA

We continued the whirlwind schedule with Mike and Sherri squeezing as many SoCal sights as possible into one week. The weather was changing with more overcast skies expected so that dictated what we would do and when we would do it. 

Mike and Sherri have never seen whales, so high on their list was a whale watching cruise. On Saturday it was a bit cool and breezy with six to eight rolling waves but the sky was clear making it a great day to be on the water. We opted for the 3-1/2 hour Hornblower Whale Cruise on a bigger boat where we could be inside or outside.

San Diego is a great place to see Gray Whales in the winter as they are making their 12,000 mile round trip from the feeding grounds of the Bering and Chukchi Seas to the mating and calving lagoons in Baja California. Our first sighting was the fluke of a diving whale.

 The spouts of water as they blow out air is what you need to look for to find them. Here are three whales traveling together. I got many pictures of nothing but water.

They all three dove together and I managed to get two of the flukes. 

Another fluke. It was neat seeing these huge animals with the city in the background. We saw eleven whales, some traveling alone and others in groups of two or three. 

A whale spy-hopping, where they extend their heads up to ten feet out of the water to look around. We have seen whales in Newfoundland, Alaska and California and we never get tired of seeing these magnificent animals.

The whale cruise comes out of San Diego Bay so you get a great view of Point Loma with the lighthouses, Coast Guard station and Cabrillo National Monument.

San Diego Harbor and skyline. If you want to see whales San Diego in the winter is a great place with a 96% chance of finding them every day.

Mike and Sherri wanted to say they have been on Route 66 in every state and wanted to go to Santa Monica where it ends on the pier. Sunday was a cool overcast day but great to drive to LA to avoid the worst of the crazy California traffic.

Sherri and Mike at the "End of the Trail". They have not driven the whole route but they have now been on Route 66 in the seven states it crosses.  Very cool!!

There were several entertainers on the pier singing, playing and selling their CDs. Here is Nanc with Lenny Hoops who did a great Louis Armstrong. There were quite a few acts, but not nearly as many as you will find in Key West.

We have never been here and found the Santa Monica Pier a worthwhile stop if you are in LA. All the people, the amusement park and a great beach make for a fun day. 

Mike and Sherri checking out all the places they have been along 2448 miles of Route 66.

The amusement park is very neat with many kids rides, a roller coaster and a tall Ferris Wheel, all on the pier over the Pacific Ocean.

The old carousel with hand carved horses is also very neat. We opted not to go for a ride.

We wanted to show Mike and Sherri how the 1% lives so we went to Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills. Mike wanted to stop at one of the upscale stores, Prada, Cartier, Tiffany, etc. to buy Sherri a gift, but fortunately for him we could not find a parking spot, saving him a few hundred dollars.

The last thing on their LA to do list was to see the Hollywood sign. We got a good look from a distance while driving around the Hollywood and Vine area where the stars on the Walk of Fame are located. It was then back to San Diego for a couple more days of exploring before Mike and Sherri head back to WashPA.  What a great road trip it was!

San Diego - Waves, Friends and the Zoo

This has been a busy whirlwind week of saying good-bye to some friends and greeting others. The weather has improved with much more sun than clouds and warmer temperatures. Despite  the few days of rain we have decided that the weather in San Diego is everything we have always heard it is. Too bad it is so expensive to live here.

It was nice enough that we went to see Paul and Trudi who are staying in Campland, located less than a mile away from us. It is a great park with a couple pools and hot tubs that Paul and I took advantage of to soak our bones. 

We expanded the Betty's web a bit when we got Bernie and Dodo together with Paul and Trudi. We met them in different places, but we have all been to Betty's. We had a great dinner on the ocean in Pacific Beach. The great variety of restaurants is another reason we like San Diego.  

Since Bernie and Dodo were leaving we had all the new friends over for happy hour(s). A great time was had by all, we think.

The day before Bernie and Dodo left Mike and Sherri arrived from WashPA for a visit. On the first day we just explored the local area around La Jolla, Mount Soledad and Torrey Pines and let them soak up some of that California sunshine. 

There was a high surf warning and the surfers and pelicans were loving it.

The breeze pushed surf made for some great crashing waves on the rocky coast.

On every San Diego visitors list a trip to the San Diego Zoo should be near the top of their to do list. The zoo is celebrating 100 years and continues to be one of the best in the country. It is really impossible to see it all in a day, but admission does include two different buses, one is a tour through the park, the other with off and on privileges, and the skyfari, an overhead tram. Even with the rides there is a lot of walking required, much of it up and down steep hills.  

Here are just a few of the 3,500 animals in the zoo.

Gazelles

Tasmanian Devil.

Koala

Giraffe.

Flamingos.

Several different bears.

Panda

A very active otter.

Snow Leopard

Elephant

The king and queen Mike and Sherri.

The king and queen of the beasts

The skyfari gives you a great overview of the zoo and is the quickest way back to the entrance.

The ever improving zoo is putting in a huge new area, Africa Rocks, to better show the animals from that continent.

Without a doubt something not to be missed (like we did on our first visit) is a small bird aviary near the entrance. It is a chance to get real up close with some beautiful hummingbirds.

Plan on spending some time here as the birds are often hard to spot.

Our patience was rewarded with some very neat pictures. 

In addition to hummingbirds there were several kinds of tanagers.

I've never been able to get these kind of close up pictures in the wild. I did not even use my telephoto lens.

This one really blended in with the leaves except for the blue and yellow head. The San Diego Zoo is very impressive with such a large variety of animals and the continuing improvements they are making.

This was only the first couple of days of Mike and Sherri's visit and we are looking forward to doing more exploring and having a FUN time with them.