March 8, 2019

March 08, 2019

This morning the sky was mainly cloudy from the overnight rain. The sun rose just after 6, about 45 minutes earlier than at home. We have the whole day in San Diego.

We took a walk in Little Italy, just a 10-minute walk away, to find a place for breakfast. There were very few restaurants open, so we returned to the deli by our hotel where we were meeting Pat and Phil later. We met Pat and Phil last fall in Sydney, Nova Scotia, (where the Canadian Women’s Scotties Curling Championships were held in February). While in the cruise ship terminal, Pat recognized Larry’s San Diego Padres (baseball team) hoodie and asked if we were from San Diego, like them. We chatted and Pat sent us some tips about activities in San Diego.

After our chat today, Phil took us over to the USS Midway, a decommissioned aircraft carrier and now a museum. He sponsored us onto the ship, before leaving to go home.

The USS Midway is entered through an entrance onto the Hangar Deck, and, like a cruise ship, there are photographers there to guide you to a place with a green background to snap a photo for you to view later. There was some kind of ceremony for young naval cadets being held on the hangar deck, complete with a colour guard. We spent the rest of the morning exploring parts of the USS Midway that we could not see two years ago because we ran out of time, even though we had been there for 3.5 hours. We took pictures of the Hangar Deck, the Flight Deck and the Command Tower including the “Air Traffic Control Room“, the ship’s bridge, and the captain’s tiny cabin behind the bridge (where he could take a quick nap if he was on a double or triple shift). The navy still uses a sextant, for astronomical measuring, to estimate a ship's position in the ocean away from land, just in case the computers and GPS malfunction. There are still navigational paper charts used too. While we were on the bridge, we observed a funny looking grey ship on its way to the open sea. We were told it was a new destroyer with angles designed to be invisible on radar screens. Before we exited the Midway, we bought a photo package that gave you two prints and were emailed five photos where a different USS Midway background was added. The USS Midway is at its berth just across the street from our hotel, only a 5-minute walk away and beside the cruise ship terminal.

Steps 9,731

When we returned to the hotel we were happy to see the message signal on our phone blinking. The message was that our second suitcase had been delivered. It did not make the flight from Vancouver on which we flew here yesterday. Fortunately, we pack each suitcase with half of each person's clothes, but the toothbrushes were in the delayed luggage.

For the afternoon we walked from our hotel to Balboa Park, via the Gaslamp Quarter, which took 87 minutes, the return walk taking a different route and took only 83 minutes. We could see the planes flying quite low as the flew above the hill where the park is located aiming for the runway below less than one kilometer away.

It was pleasant not to have to wear parkas, ski pants, toques and mittens. The day was great for exploring; sunny, +14°C and a wind that was 15 to 19 km per hour. When we visited Balboa Park two years ago, we spent part of a day at the San Diego Zoo in the park. Steps 28,003

For supper, we ventured back to nearby Little Italy and chose another of the three streets to find the Farmers Table restaurant that Phil had suggested. The restaurant was packed and we got a window seat to watch all the people strolling by along India Street. Larry’s pizza was far better than last night’s and Claire selected a delicious Ratatouille Risotto. Little Italy was quite alive on a Friday night.

As we walked down Ash Street we could see the strings of white light outlining the masts and sails of the Star of India ship at the Maritime Museum, then as we turned onto Harbor Drive, we could see the string of white, blue and red lights strung on the superstructure of the USS Midway.

We walked over 16 kilometres today. The step counter registered over 32,000 steps for the whole day.