Tacos, Torpedoes, and Old Towns
San Diego is California’s second-most-populated city and its oldest. You had me at sunshine. Wait, did I skip that part? San Diego has a Mediterranean climate, so its sunshine is as plentiful as its people. Jason and I recently traveled to those unclouded shores again and enjoyed 75 degrees while it was significantly less than 75 degrees back home. Our many past visits to San Diego didn’t make choosing where to spend our time any easier. We ended up occupying a few days collectively at some places that could have eaten up several days each. Plus, we ate a lot, as in an amount that requires a long-winded paragraph to cover.
The seafood and Mexican cuisine options in San Diego are like a tidal wave hitting a tamale stand the size of a football stadium. How does one choose between them? Oh, the gastrointestinal conflict! The culinary drama! Why not gorge on both? We dined at La Puerta, voted one of the top 10 places to get a taco in the United States. Based off our meal, it deserves that prestige. We also ate at El Agave, an old favorite of ours. The Taco Stand provided yet another tasty serving of tacos; Jason and I are still debating if that tastiness outweighed the wait though. For seafood, we feasted at Top of the Market where the crab cakes and Key lime panna cotta were the best part of the meal. We didn’t skimp on dessert elsewhere either. We ate handmade ice cream at Salt and Straw not once but twice. It could have been 27 times, but we have impressive self-control. Donut Bar, claimed to have the world’s most award-winning donuts, also intrigued us. However, by the time we visited at noon, only the sickly-sweet varieties were left. Therefore, Jason and I concluded we’d rate some of the donut shops in Portland higher. We would be happy to perform another taste test at Donut Bar to ascertain if our initial conclusion was correct. We also consumed pancakes and breakfast tacos at Snooze AM Eatery. Limiting taco intake to just two meals a day seems entirely unnecessary. Why so many sentences devoted to the discussion of consumption? I like food.
Although devouring excellent eats did take up a surprising amount of time, we sandwiched other activities between meals. We spent a few hours aboard the USS Midway, an aircraft carrier with the capacity to accommodate over 130 aircrafts. Midway was commissioned in 1945 and was the largest ship in the world at the time. To me, the Midway felt both monstrously huge and cramped all at once. I only managed to tackle a fraction of the exhibits, but don’t worry, I still significantly augmented the useless-facts portion of my brain. Did you know SOS stands for save our ship?
The following day, we went on a photography tour of Old Town and Balboa Park. Not only did we learn some fascinating historical tidbits (There were no trees in San Diego when the first Spaniards arrived.), but I got some classic shots of the architecture in Balboa Park’s 1,200 acres. Not familiar with Balboa Park? Here are some useless facts to expand your brain: Balboa Park was one of the first places devoted to public recreation in the United States and is larger than New York City’s Central Park by almost 400 acres. That acreage is filled with 17 museums, a zoo, bowling greens, multiple gardens, a Shakespearean theater, a puppet theater, a gymnasium, an organ pavilion, and restaurants. The graceful archways and clay roof tiles of Balboa’s Spanish Colonial Revival architecture afforded perfect framing and contrast to a lapis sky; the picture possibilities seemed inexhaustible.
One of Balboa Park’s attractions is the renowned San Diego Zoo. We hadn’t revisited the zoo in over a decade. With temperatures in the 70s, spending time outside was a must. This made the zoo an easy choice. The San Diego Zoo is home to over 650 species of animals. It also contains a plethora of paths that overlap frequently, which sometimes makes figuring out where you are at less than easy. We wandered along the Monkey Trail, Scripps Aviary, parts of the Park Way, and the Eagle Trail. We didn’t know where we were headed a large share of the time, but we encountered many animals that we’d never heard of and old favorites along our mysterious route.
The San Diego Zoo accommodates 27 types of monkey and various other primates; these were some of our favorites of the day. The bonobo, often called the pygmy chimpanzee, is an endangered species of great ape and the most intriguing creature we encountered at the zoo. It is believed to be humans’ closest relative with a developed brain capable of empathy and recognizing affliction in others. In full disclosure, we did witness one of these intelligent animals sample its own feces. But, if humans didn’t wear pants and eating your own excrement wasn’t socially forbidden, you might try a turd too.
On our last day in San Diego, we went back for one more taste of Old Town. Along with watching some colorful Folklorico dancing performed for free at the Fiesta de Reyes, we learned about the difficulties of stagecoach travel at the Wells Fargo Museum and the Seeley Stable Museum. We also visited the Mormon Battalion Historic Site, which provided another perspective on San Diego’s early days.
Like Colonial Williamsburg, Old Town San Diego State Historic Park is a living history museum. As in Colonial Williamsburg, employees wear historical garb at Old Town. However, I did see a laptop and a couple other bits of modern technology being used by employees in Old Town, which would be occupational suicide in Colonial Williamsburg. Bygone pretentiousness comes at a cost though; unlike Colonial Williamsburg, most of the museums at Old Town are free. I’m guessing the frugal among you would happily overlook some out-of-place tech to achieve a positive impact on your pocketbook.
San Diego filled our travel guts with delicious sustenance. We consumed tacos aplenty, sampled architecture, drank in sunshine, and gobbled trivial data. Yummy! By the way, San Diego may be California’s second-most-populated city, but it felt pleasantly deserted without the Comic-Con crowds.
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