Hello San Diego

We’re in San Diego!!

We woke up early. (apparently my internal clock has been set to wake up for work now, so I crawled out of bed at 6:40am. On vacation. Blarg.) But somehow we managed to not get on road until after 11am. The drive from Vegas to San Diego isn’t that bad. We made a stop in Barstow, which was annihilated in Chuck after Chevy Chase tried to upload the Intersect at their drive-in theater. (What? we’re nerds, ok?) But anyway, we were excited, so we stopped and found some food, something I’ve been craving for quite some time and Isa’s taste buds have never enjoyed:

I love In-N-Out, and Isa would have enjoyed it more if it weren’t for Shake Shack. But Shake Shack’s burgers are so dang delicious that she thought In-N-Out’s were just good, not “blow-the-competition-away” excellent. Whatever. I was happy. :)

We checked into our hotel (Humphrey’s Half Moon Inn on Shelter Island) which falls somewhere in the middle of a Tahitian bungalow and a fancy log cabin. It was really nice. It's right on the Marina:

Here’s a night picture of the main building:

It also had a classy restaurant (we get free breakfast every morning), an open-air concert stage (they host summer concerts with big name stars), and a nice pool, although we probably won’t go swimming while we’re here – too much to do.

We only had the afternoon to see San Diego, so we went to the one place I’ve always wanted to go: Belmont Park on Mission Beach. I didn’t get to ride the roller coaster last time I was here and I’ve always wanted to do it. The coaster, much like Coney Island’s Cyclone but less bumpy/painful and with much better views, is situated right on the beach.

The Giant Dipper

The view coming around the second turn is amazing! I wasn’t ready with the camera; it kinda surprised both of us and took our breath away. We toyed with the idea of paying another $6 each to go on it again just to see that view one more time, but we figured we’d be back again.

So on we went to Old Town. This was a cute little section of town with antique-y buildings with old architecture and lots of flowers. It was fun to roam around in there. Oh, by the way, everyone is SO NICE in San Diego. That’s all. Just nice people here.

As we were leaving to go watch the sunset, Isa spotted our church logo on the side of a building. Turns out it’s the Mormon Battalion Historical Site. We went back there after sunset, and when you’re done looking at the picture below, click here to read more about this place. It was SO COOL! It’s like a Harry Potter version of an interactive museum. Yeah. Click.

We shot down to Sunset Cliffs, but the sunset wasn’t that amazing tonight. Oh well, it’s hard to compete with some of the sunsets we’ve seen.

Coney Island

In Isa and my quest to do everything in New York, we went to Coney Island yesterday. :) It's been 6 years since my last visit, and that was on a cold and cloudy day. Yesterday was about 90 degrees and beautiful.


Coney Island is a bit different from the Caribbean beaches that Isa and I are used to. The clientele was a lot different. Among other things, It was weird to hear the "F" bomb dropped so many times. :(

We also walked through the amusement park:


And we checked out the new section of Coney Island called "Luna Park" which has all new rides (really cool and exciting rides) and looks really cool:


We took the $8/person ride on the Cyclone, which is worth it only if you completely forget that you just paid $8 to get on it. It's a fun coaster, but hurts bad because it jerks you around so much. I will say though, that it had a lot more padding on it this time than I remember it in the past. But Isa and I both still got bruises.


And since we were in Coney Island, we decided to stop over at the Brooklyn Public Library and use our Key to the City. (If you haven't heard about how Isa and I both received Keys to the City, click this link to watch the video about it.) We were able to open this lockbox:


and look through the books and random treasures found inside, from love notes to an old Coney Island can and what looked like ancient artifacts. We signed our names claiming that we'd been there, and closed the box up for the next key holders. :)

All in all, it was a pretty great day.