San Diego - Day 1

Here are the girls ready to go on an early morning flight

And here's what we landed to....BEAUTIFUL!! Unfortunately, we timed our trip to coincide with a little Southern California heatwave...it reached in to the 80's inland most days and the lows were in the high-60's/low 70's each evening. DARN! :-)

Our hotel was located in an area called Liberty Station. This area used to be a Navy base and all the old buildings have now been converted to restaurants and shops. It had a charming appeal to it and was a great place to stay. Here's the view from outside our hotel. I actually jogged that path next to the water one morning too - meant to do it every morning...but hey, it was vacation.

Another neat thing on the grounds next to the hotel was the USS Recruit - a non-sea-going commissioned vessel made out of concrete used for training purposes. While you couldn't go on it, we could walk around it and take silly pictures.

After checking in, we had lunch at a fun 50's themed diner called the Corvette Cafe. They had great burgers and milkshakes, themed rooms, and a DJ that played all your favorite 50's hits and made the wait staff dance and sing from time to time. After that, we headed over to the harbor for a cruise around the bay.

The cruise around the bay was wonderful, and at times a bit chilly...such a welcome treat! The girls were on constant look-out for seals and other marine life while Scott and I were fascinated with all the military presence in the bay. Here are a few shots of the seals...

From this tour you can see the USS Midway, US Coast Guard, the Maritime Museum, a Submarine Base, the Rosecrans Military Cemetery and Cabrillo National Monument and Lighthouse in/on Point Loma and the Naval Air Station on Coronado Island. At any given moment you can see military helicopters, fighter jets, military ships and such...it's pretty cool!

Scott was most interested in the Submarine Base. Since 9-11, it's been under the extended protection of these big black "sausage" like buoys. As we went by, our guide pointed out that there were three Los Angeles Class nuclear subs being repaired. For those of you not familiar with subs, the LA Class is pretty much the bad boy of them all. We weren't able to get too close, but from the picture below, you can see the sausage buoys and there is a sub in dry dock behind the black curtain on the left.

Here's the USS Midway, the longest-serving air craft carrier in US Navy history. Every time I looked at it, I couldn't help thinking how my Dad would have been all over that thing in a heart beat! (Dad, it would have been awesome to tour it with you!!) It was always on our list to do, but we never got around to it. Shame. Next trip.

The harbor tour pretty much concluded our already long day. We had an early dinner and settled in for the evening, anxious to get started on some more fun the next day!