San Diego- A taste of American Culture

Full disclosure. I'm not a big city person and we're currently finishing up our week in the 8th largest city in the USA, staying about 40 minutes outside of the city in the 'suberbs?' of San Diego near Escondido. This has meant, for most of our sight-seeing, we needed to get on the freeway for awhile and barrel into town. I spend most of the time during these drives gripping my seat as the freeway is usually packed and mostly it is 12 lanes wide (6 in each direction). This boggles my mind...how much humanity is crazily being pumped down these highways each day. It makes me wonder at those that survive this as a daily commute and the reasons they choose to do it. I read on some sites that San Diego is the 'greenest' city in the USA by some environmental measurments. However, it sure isn't due to it's great emission free or public transportation as far as I can tell (though there are ridiculous #'s of Tesla's here). And we did sample the public transit both by bus and trolley (aka skytrain like). Those were prompt and pleasant experiences though there wasn't a tonne of usage.

 The goal of the week was to stop and refresh, do a lot of laundry and do some things that would be fun for the kids so they would be ok with going on more big hikes the following weeks. I think San Diego helped us meet those goals. We've been able to take in some real American culture-- the commuting, yes but also a big amusement park, a science museum, Cinco de Mayo festivities in old town which happened to be my birthday and a Padres professional baseball game (we've now checked off one of Chris' sports goals. I think horse racing and/or a rodeo are still on the list for other states). 

One place that took us a bit by surprise was the tour of the Midway Aircraft Carrier. It is worth a visit! The Midway Aircraft Carrier is in the main harbour as a floating museum. Built in 1945 it didn't serve in WWII but did in later wars (i.e Vietnam & Gulf War). I expected a quick tour and explore of the ship but we ended up there for more than 2hrs. There was a lot to do and a great audio tour that had a kids version for many of the locations (plus a scavenger hunt to earn a badge to be a "junior officer"). The kids loved the stories in the audio, making the place real, and all the stairs and climbing around--plus planes and a ship all in one! We enjoyed that the place was FULL of docents that were retired veterans ready with powerpoints on how to land on a carrier to answering questions about the engine room or the brig. The museum does a great job of telling the story as well from those who served on the ship. Hundreds and hundreds of people were there with us but because it was so big you could easily get lost 3 layers down in your own story. We also had some good outdoor adventures-- a bike ride around Mission Bay (Vera completed 20km), a hike in Torrey Pines State Park (so many blooming flowers!) & yesterday morning a kayak around caves and sea lions in the crystal waters off of La Jolla. But more of that to come again now that we're heading back into the wild--this time to the desert.

 Today we're heading now to the San Diego Safari Park on our way out of town and then continuing East towards Anzo Borrego State Park, Joshua Tree State Park and the Mohavi Desert. Cell signal will be spotty so stay tuned for an update in a week when we shock ourselves with the lights and sights of Vegas.