Monday, December 03, 2007

7 reasons to leave the Northwest for a while

Today: Rain, heavy at times with wind.
Tomorrow: Rain to showers.
Wednesday: Cloudy with showers.
Thursday: Scattered showers.
Friday: Cloudy with showers.
Saturday: Rain at times.
Sunday: Partly cloudy with showers.

You get the idea. Rain. Liquid sunshine my ass.

The Mister planned an after Christmas trip for us this year. He booked it two days before San Diego went up in flames.

Guess where we are going?

Yep, San Diego! We will be staying at a place which is still there, and still beautiful, in La Jolla. We are leaving the day after Christmas and will be returning on New Year's Eve. We will spend the time wandering on the beach, window shopping, hiking and eating good food.

Even if it rains, it will be warmer than it is here. This trip will prevent me from curling into a little ball and staying in my bed with two cats for the rest of the winter and most of the spring.

If any of you have knowledge of San Diego, please chime in with the names of restaurants, places to go, hikes to take, anything you think we should see. Thanks.

35 comments:

Maddy said...

Good for you. All excellent reasons.
Cheers
Something peculiar has happened to blogger comments so just for now, this is my calling card "Whittereronautism"so we can find each other.

flutter said...

Oh my hometown!

Ok, you have to go to the Hotel Del Coronado and meander around, it is gorgeous and ohhhh how I want to get married there.

Then you have to go to Balboa Park and go to the artist's village. Gaslamp Quarter has every kind restaurant you can imagine and then some. Spend time in Banker's Hill and Mission Hills and downtown.

oh and email me if you want to know more :)

Wayfarer Scientista said...

Good thing it's not raining, huh?

Enjoy San Diego and all that Vitamin D!

Liv said...

How about sunny middle Georgia? I mean, not so much in the way or terrain, but seriously awesome people is what I hear.

Mrs. Chili said...

I'd take rain over what's falling from our sky right now...

I've never been that far west, so I can't help you with your San Diego trip. I hope you have a fantastic time, though.

Platypus said...

I know nothing about San Diego other than that it has a zoo but I'm sure you'll have a great time and I'm very jealous. Oh and I've snapped out of my mood now... ;)

thailandchani said...

I would gladly take some rain right now. This area is in a bubble of high pressure. Nothing gets in or out. It's really icky. The sun is too bright all the time because there is no color to absorb it!

Send some of the rain here! :)

San Diego is a beautiful place!

Unknown said...

That's one of the things I hate about fall/winter here... lots of rain...

Have fun in San Diego! (in case I forget to tell you before you actually go...)

luckyzmom said...

My daughter was born there. La Jolla is beautiful. There used to be Sea World. And definetely the Zoo and Balboa Park. Hotel del Coronado is cool to see on the peninsula. The owners of a tavern in Pacific Beach gave me a baby shower. The gifts were on one pool table and the food on the other. My daughter is 36, to give you an idea of how accurate my information is! It was occassionally very foggy some mornings. Enjoy.)

Anonymous said...

my ten day forecast is

cloudy, freezing, windy with chance of flurries

every single day.

Last night we had an ice storm. It was beautiful this morning, but the sun never came out until about half an hour ago (almost dark), so we didn't get the diamond effect.

I tried to take some pictures, which I'll post later.

Hang in there!

meno said...

maddy, i think google/blogger has instituted a new fascist policy on comments, but your url comes through with your name too, so no worries.

flutter, we stayed at the Del last time we were there, about 4 years ago. I want to go back to that beach for sure. I'll be e-mailing.

wayfarer, hah! I think i might be getting rickets.

liv, i know for sure that the women there are fiesty! I like that in a person.

mrs.chili, but the snow is so pretty!

platypus, good to hear about the mood. Zoos make the Mister sad, so we might not go there.

chani, i have heard the emergency broadcast system actaully used twice in my life. Once was about 5minutes ago. Flood warnings. you can have the rain.

andrea, and the dark, the endless dark.

luckyzmom, We will be checking out Balboa Park without question.

Dick said...

Sea World was fun when we were there in 1988. My son gets down there every now and then with the Navy- I'll try to ask him for suggestions. Of course, he being a Sailor, where he likes to go may not be the places you'd want to take your daughter to!

Mermaid Melanie said...

San Diego is beautiful. If the weather is nice you have to go to Balboa Park one day, where the famous San Diego zoo is.

I don't know where to eat there. La Jolla is beautiful!

QT said...

Oh lucky you! My sister used to live there over 10 years ago, so I am afraid her restaurant recs wouldn't do you much good.

Andrea Frazer said...

I will email you later. I know of so many great places since I went to UCSD. You will LOOOOVE it, Meno. I promise you.

Lynnea said...

That is one cool Mister you've got there and you are one lucky dog.

Snow snow snow snow and a little bit more of snow here. Though I shouldn't complain, I'm having a white Christmas and I don't miss that rain. One. Iota.

crazymumma said...

Pishaw to the rain.

Have a great time! And if Neil is in town say hi for me.

Anonymous said...

For kicks, cross the bridge and go to coronado bay to watch the Seals in training (navy seals). mmmmmm.

SUEB0B said...

I am big on Balboa Park and all the fun musees there. It has been a while, but I ate at a really terrific Afghan restaurant in the Hillcrest area called Khyber Pass.

To look for good restaurants, check www.chowhound.com

ms chica said...

San Diego was the first real getaway I took with my Mister, Unfortunately, I don't remember any of the restaurants, but if it's any consolation we had wonderful food the entire time we were there.

Lynn said...

My nephew lives in San Diego. I will ask him for some suggestions and pass them along. I would be very happy if you would send some of the rain this way.

Bob said...

wow - you got comment spammed.

it ALMOST rained here yesterday. or at least they said it did. the sky darkened and the wind picked up and everyone panicked. they store a lot of stuff outside here that we in more temperate climates wouldn't, simply because it doesn't rain but maybe an inch or two a year.

Mother of Invention said...

Come to The Great White North...we are getting a ton of snow and this is the second day in a row that school buses have been CANCELLED! Another baking day! Cocooning!

Your trip does sound pretty nice though!

Anonymous said...

But what will the weather be like? Will it rain? Do you think? Perhaps some rain. Maybe.

We've got serious wind and cold here in CT. Nasty at the bus stop. I keep warm by chasing my kids with a rolled-up newspaper. Bad boys! Bad boys!

Anonymous said...

Rain, you poor thing. It's snowing here. A lot of snow and it's freaking cold, -20C. But you're right, rain does suck. The skies get grey and stay that way. At least with snow, we do have some sunny, still cold, but sunny days.

San Diego sounds nice.

Scott from Oregon said...

Mt.WOodside or something like that, has some great boulders to climb.

There is a crack in one called "Robbins Crack" named after a climber who later made his fame in Ysemite...

heartinsanfrancisco said...

I lived in San Diego for five years before moving to SF. We lived in Pacific Beach, one town south of La Jolla, and then in Carlsbad, a coastal town north of SD.

La Jolla has a lot of small cove beaches including Seal Beach, which they were planning to restructure four years ago, when we left, to discourage the seals. I don't know if they are still there but it's worth a try, and it was right by the seawall in town.

There are many good restaurants and great little shops in the village of La Jolla.

Old Town San Diego is charming, Mexican shops and restaurants, the best of which is Casa Bandini, set among a group of olde-type craftsman shops like Williamsburg, VA. There are always mariachi bands in several of the restaurants, and it's a delightful place to visit.

The honky-tonk area would be Garnet St. in Pacific Beach which ends at the ocean. There is a wonderful boardwalk for strolling, bike riding, roller blading and people-watching.

Sea World Aquarium is in Ocean Beach and worth the trip, and the San Diego Zoo is downtown in a parklike setting near the Art Museum and more crafters' shops of various kinds.

Now I'm missing San Diego as I write this. See you there!

sari said...

Have a wonderful time!!

egan said...

We just got back and were relieved our basement hadn't flooded. It was crazy around town yesterday.

meno said...

de, maybe you should come to san Diego with us. I look forward to your pictures.

dick, Thank you, i would love to hear what your son has to say. No topless bars for me though. :)

melanie, we will definitely be going to Balboa Park.

qt, yeah, restaurants tend to change faster than that.

mamap, thank you!

maggie, yeas, and yes! Snow is at least pretty. i wouldn't mind a little around here.

crazymumma, i'll tell him hi, since we know each other so well and all.

my pool, oohh, that sounds like a good idea!

suebob, i am writing down all the restaurants people suggest. I LOVE to eat.

ms. chica, you must have been busy doing something else. Hmmm.

lynn, thank you, i look forward to hearing what he has to say.

bob, and in Spanish! But i made it go away. Imagine if we could do a redistribution on all this rain. Might not be so brown there.

moi, Did you used to make snow ice cream when you were young? We did it all the time. Can't do that anymore because of pollution.

capacious, i think it might rain, can't tell from the ambiguous forecast. Do you smack them on the nose when they piddle on the carpet?

deb, it's not so bad, although both this state and Oregon have been declared disaster areas because of the flooding.

scott, i will check it out, no climbing for me, but there might be hiking nearby.

hearts, you are a fountain of information. Thank you. I LOVE good Mexican food. Drooling already.

sari, thank you, we will.

egan, that's good news. There's plenty of water to cause flooding.

egan said...

Yes, you're right about that. San Diego has a good zoo, but you already know that. San Diego has some cool beaches, but you already know that. San Diego has fantastic nude beaches, but we know you already know that too. Shit, what don't you know?

fiwa said...

I can't believe the crazy weather. It took me 3 hours to get to work yesterday - usually it's 45 minutes, maybe an hour.

I have never been to San Diego, but I've heard that La Jolla is really pretty. Hope you have fun.

Unknown said...

Can I dance in that liquid sunshine?

wordsong said...

There's a vegetarian socialist restaurant called "Che's Cafe Collective," which is South American fare (excellent burritos!), grown communally in the back of the restaurant. There's always activist literature lying around, great coffee and no hierarchy in management...

Oh look at me, selling the place. You might already be back from your trip. Love your blog, Meno.

wordsong said...

Ah, it seems I missed that it's a post-Christmas trip. Have fun!