San Diego Day 1

    For Patrick's 50th Birthday, we decided to travel down to San Diego and celebrate with his longtime friends, Ruth and Josh (and their families, as they were also turning 50 this year). He would show me all the sights and try to convince me to move back down there with him. (Spoiler, no thank you. It's beautiful, but I think the heat would kill me!)

    We decided to buy a package through Costco Travel that included the flight, 3 nights in Kona Kai resort, and a rental car (small upcharge for the premium model). However, I don't think I would do a rental car through a typical company anymore. The website for Budget said "Toyota Crown or similar", which is the exact car I wanted, as it's on my spite list for not being able to get it from Turo in Texas, but they don't guarantee the model (the guy that showed us to the car said that they "hardly have any of those", which makes me think that their website is very misleading and I am upset about it.) I mean, the other issue was the cars that were offered, which were a Toyota 4-Runner or a Hyundai Tucson, weren't even hybrids, so no, it's not a "Toyota Crown or similar"! Similar would be a hybrid at the very least! We decided on the Tucson, as much as I dislike Hyundai for several reasons that I won't get into here, because it had better gas milage. When I think of premium, I think of a class of car, not a size. The Tucson is very much an SUV, which we didn't really need, but I digress. 

    Since we were too early to check into our hotel, we did a little exploring. We had to stop by a grocery store first to pick up some things we couldn't take on our carry-on, and grabbed some coffee as well as we had had an early flight. After that, we grabbed lunch as Shawarma Guys. This was our first time eating Shawarma and this was voted one of the best places so we checked it out - but it was a food truck so we didn't eat there. We drove to Cabrillo National Monument in order to get some stellar views and eat up there at the same time. You could see Mexico from our viewpoint. The food was also very good, but I don't think I'll ever seek out Shawarma again.

    It was time to check into our hotel and although the grounds were impressive, the hotel itself left a bit to be desired. The bed was certainly comfortable, and the room was clean, but the "Bay View" was more parking lot than bay, which was very disappointing. The shower was also gross and was completely busted. I mean, it worked, but leaks were spraying water everywhere. We were tuckered out so we took a short nap before we headed to the one place we booked tickets for: The San Diego Sunset Cruise. 

    The cruise itself was nice, but they only circled Mission Bay. I was hoping they would kind of cruise along the cliffs but I realized later that probably wouldn't have been possible and I was expecting too much. And unfortunately, the sunset was pretty much nil. It was the same for the whole trip actually, which was super lame. I was glad of the clouds though, as when the sun is beating down on your as far south as San Diego it's pretty intense, and any temp the gauge says, add 10 degrees when it hits your skin. 

    We figured we could squeeze in one more thing before heading back to the hotel for the night, and that was to check out the free Mission Bay Park where they have fair stuff and a path along the beach. I liked that we went after sunset as the fair lights were nice, and of course the temperature was perfect. The fair part was pretty small but hey, it was free so I can't complain. We walked along the beachwalk for a while and checked out the houses on the shore. One of them had a QR code to book a stay (they were probably all Air B&Bs) and it was I believe, $2700 a night - in October. Yup, that's San Diego for you!

    After that we called it a night. We had some great plans for the next day!