Last Day in San Diego

Happy Memorial Day Weekend to you.  We are, as usual, astonished at the number of families with young children who arrive in Class C RVs with no towed vehicle.  Many of them are in rental RVs, most of which do not allow the towing of cars; and really, how many people own car you can tow wheels down?  They come here, they stay here.  They drive nowhere.  Given how short their kids' legs are, I doubt that they are making the 1.5 mile trek to the trolley station, either.  There is swimming, bicycles are ridden in circles around the park, balls are thrown,  and the bay is within walking distance.  The kids love it, my hat is off to their parents for doing the work to make it happen.
Saturday we drove over to the Mission Hills district so we could briskly walk up and down their very steep hills. This dog is standing on a boat so he can bark at us.

 

This is California housing perfection; Mission tile roof, deep porches, and a beautiful front yard full of color.

 

Another blooming tree.

 

Yesterday the goal was to walk around in the Gaslamp Quarter. We were thwarted in that desire by an incredible number of people downtown taking up all of the available parking.  We ended up parking in Little Italy, and heading down to the water front.

 

An Amtrak train being refueled by a truck.

 

The Midway Museum.

 

We gave some thought to touring the Midway until we started looking at the lines.  There were huge lines to buy tickets, walk up the brow to board the ship, and then once on the ship there were more lines (look at the bottom of the photo).  So we did not do that.

 

Planes on the museum.

 

More aircraft on the other side of the boat.

 

There are various memorials to service men along the water front.  This one was very popular with young couples, many of whom were emulating the kiss for photographs. Most of the women weren't dropping their left arms enough.

 

The USS Dolphin tied up next to the Berkeley. The Berkeley is an 1898 steam powered ferry that operated in the San Fransisco Bay for 60 years.We're not sure what's on the other side of the Dolphin.  The USS Dolphin was the Navy's last operational diesel-electric, deep-diving, research and development submarine.  Her keel was laid down on 9 November 1962.  The single most significant technical achievement in the development of Dolphin is the pressure hull itself. It is a constant diameter cylinder, closed at its ends with hemispherical heads, and utilizes deep frames instead of bulkheads. The entire design of the pressure hull was kept as simple as possible to facilitate its use in structural experiments and trials.  I clipped that information from a very interesting Wiki which can be found here.

 

We wandered over to Nordstrom after the water front.  Would some one like to explain to me when jeans started costing $235.00!!!!!  What the heck?  Another sign that I am totally unhooked from my culture.

 

This is our last day in San Diego.  It's a nice place to visit, but it's not a long term stay destination for us.  Biking opportunities are virtually non-existent.  We're seen the attractions, which were fun once, but aren't repeaters.  Jaded, we are.  Anyway, I will be very surprised if we are back here next year.