3 Week Tour of the West: San Diego

San Diego

Had a good nights sleep, even though I was on an " Isomatte " (foam mattress). We all did something different today, some Sea World, some San Diego zoo, some shopping. I went to Balboa Park and San Diego harbour with Neil and John. I didn't fancy the zoo, cause we've got zoos in Germany and after Universal Studios, I didn't fancy Sea World especially as today was Saturday. Still I have seen sea lion shows and such before. Anyway I went to a couple of museums in Balboa Park, then we got the bus to downtown.

USS Constellation (CV64) We'd seen a couple of aircraft carriers in the harbour and decided to see if we could get close enough for a picture. We took the ferry across to Coronado, and walked along the beach (behind peoples back gardens and through the sewage - John was leading!). We didn't get very far that way and had to turn back and go along the road! We found the navy base and some of the crew were just lining up a group for a guided tour. We joined the queue. WOW! I've seen the ships on JAG and on other TV programmes, but to realise just how big these are impossible unless you've actually been on one! Now when I watch JAG, I'll be able to say - seen that!

The trip back from the carrier was rather eventful. We caught the ferry back across the harbour at 17.00, we were going to have a look around downtown for half an hour but first wanted to find the bus stop. That proved a problem. We wanted bus No. 30, when we found a bus stop it said 30 didn't run on Saturday, we assumed that it was just that stop, so we looked for the next stop. There wasn't a schedule up there, so we asked someone. He told us that No. 30 didn't run at all at weekends, we had to get a No. 9. That took hours to come. We finally caught a bus at about 19.00!! In which time Neil and John almost froze, they hadn't got a jacket!, and when the sun went in, it was quite cool.

On the bus a sailor started chatting Neil up, but John and I didn't realise as we were busy talking to the bus driver. He collected coins so we gave him a DM and an Australian dollar. He gave us his address, so that we could play the lotto for him! When we got off the bus, we had to walk about 20 mins to the camp site. During this walk John and I intended to tease Neil about his chat with the sailor. Well, what we hadn't realised was that Neil was really being chatted up! And when he'd turned to me in the bus and said " You haven't got a pen, have you? " He didn't really want one. But I was very good to him and passed one over! Now it is a standing joke amongst the three of us: " Want a pen? "

We were a bit worried that we were so late back to the camp site, and that Linda may be out looking for us, as it was though, Linda and the others still weren't back from their trip to Tijuana (Mexico). We went to a Mexican restaurant for dinner in Old Town.