We started our day with the plan to grab a quick breakfast followed by a visit to Balboa park where the zoo, gardens and a variety of other museums are located. We stopped at a café off the highway as we drove into San Diego.
Unfortunately that extra time caused us to forfeit going to Balboa Park. We gave it a very valiant effort but there were absolutely no parking spots anywhere. Since it was early in the morning there weren't any people pulling out either. So, we put that on our list for another trip and made our way over to Old Town. Nothing opened up until 10am here so we didn't have a problem parking. This was another experience that Adam and I both remember fondly from our time here together in 2000. It was a lot of fun to wander through all of the shops.
Geppetto's, a children's toy shop, had a table set up just outside of their entrance and the girls were having fun playing with the blocks and building towers. It was hard to pull them away but with a promise of revisiting before we leave they agreed.
We noticed one of the stores was named Silver Lily, which was very exciting for our Lily to see.
As we walked around, the girls could not get over how much it seemed like we were in the middle of Mexico. We made our way past the stores and towards the back which was the heart of the Old Town San Diego State Historic Park. This park has many historic buildings from the 1800's.
We went through the McCoy House Museum.
In one of the rooms upstairs there was a wooden coffin sitting out. I opened it up and was planning to spook the girls but instead I spooked all of us. To my surprise, as it opened there was a loud hissing noise and a (fake) snake sitting at the bottom. We had to open it up a couple more times which turned our initial startled reaction into lots of giggles.
It was another beautiful day so when Lily started saying she was hungry we decided to sit outside for lunch at Barra Barra, one of the Mexican restaurants here. They gave the kids crayons and we all drew pictures while we waited for our meal to come.
After lunch we continued walking through the historical section. In the middle was a large open field with a few huge trees that the girls were climbing and enjoying. As we started heading back to the car we noticed there was a covered wagon people were allowed inside and we had to take a turn. Parallel to the parking lot sat the Cosmopolitan Hotel. Before getting into the truck we quickly went inside.
Our next stop was heartbreaking and a blast all wrapped into one...the Dog Beach. Heartbreaking, because it really made us miss Tyson even more than we already do (which I didn't think was humanly possible) but a blast because this beach was really for the dogs and we absolutely loved seeing them all in this unique (to us) situation. They didn't have to be on leashes and everywhere we looked there were dogs beachin' it. Dogs were strolling through the sand. Groups of dogs were frolicking around like children playing tag. Some were furiously digging holes in the sand. Others were playing catch with their owners at the water's edge . The ocean was filled with dogs running through the water, swimming and jumping waves. There were big dogs, tiny dogs, long haired, short haired and we were going ga-ga over every single one.
Seeing the dogs thoroughly enjoying the beach made the girls ready to move on so it could be their turn to do the same. We drove over to Hotel Coronado and the girls ran right into the ocean. We stayed on the beach for hours.
It was well after 7pm when we started getting hungry for dinner so we gathered up our stuff and walked back to the car. We noticed the sun was setting and we stayed right there to watch the spectacular scene.
We stayed in Coronado but drove over to the bay where there were lots of restaurants and a gorgeous view of the city. The restaurant we chose had indoor seating that felt like we were outside so we could stay warm from the night's chill but still have a perfect view of the city skyline.
As we stepped out of the restaurant a spark in the sky caught our eye. All of a sudden there was an incredible display of fireworks over the bay. This made up for missing the fireworks on the 4th of July.
Walking back to the car we stopped to take a photo when Ella noticed there were snails all over the plants in the landscaping in front of us. We stayed there for a long time watching as they very slowly moved about the leaves and continued noticing more and more of them.
Earlier when we were at the beach Adam went into the hotel to use the restroom. I never made it inside and really wanted to see it too. Even though Adam wasn't as enthused about going back this late at night (mostly because we still had a 45 minute drive back to the RV) back to the Hotel we went. We quickly checked out the lobby, the corridor of shops and sat outback listening to the live music playing inside of the bar. Now that we did it all we made the drive back to the campground and all went right to sleep.
