San Diego

This week I got to enjoy sunny San Diego while the rest of the continent was in a deep freeze. I work for an electric utility and there was a conference there directed at utilities.  Although the focus was for work I timed my flights such that I could get a few tourist stops in. My first stop was the San Diego Zoo. Kerry and my mother-in-law Barb had phoned ahead and bought me a pass for my birthday. Established in 1922 it boasts over 4000 animals and is by far the nicest zoo I've been to. The exhibits are very natural looking while still allowing people to get very close to the animals. These Koalas didn't seem to mind that we were watching them take a nap.

Day two was a conference day.  I signed up quite late so my hotel ended up being about 2km away.  I took a taxi there the first morning but after that I walked most of the time. My hotel was right across from the maritime museum. This particular ship is the oldest iron hauled ship afloat today.  Not far from here there the USS Midway was docked.  It's an aircraft carrier from WWII and was set up as a museum with quite a few different planes and helicopters.

Day three also ended up being a conference day but I left the hotel early so I cold get in a bit of geocaching. With over 200 geocaches within 2km of my hotel there was no shortage of unique places to visit. There were small parks dotting the water front and ordinarily I would have passed right by, however I took a meandering route instead and found my first five international geocaches. This 25 ft tall statue depicts the iconic photo from the end of WWII two titled "The Kiss".

The conference ended early on Thursday and my flight wasn't till the evening so I finished my week with a trip to Sea World.  I treated this week as a scouting mission for the family. All of this was within 5km of the airport and my hotel and there was a ton of family oriented things to do. I never even made it to Lego Land.  (A single guy walking around the zoo and the aquarium isn't too bad but it would just be creepy walking around Lego Land.) We're planning a road trip to Disneyland in 2012 and I think we might add San Diego to the itinerary.