Captain_Oblivious
DIS Dad #257, Galactic Salad Dodger
- Joined
- Nov 10, 2008
- Messages
- 13,418
Chapter 14: You Don’t Need A Boat To See The Ocean
San Diego is expensive, so it was time for us to move on. But first, we wanted to make sure we saw the Pacific Ocean one more time, and not from a boat this time. The Channel Islands trip had scarred us from sailing for…well, it’s been over a year and I still don’t want to do it again.
We took a drive out to the coast around the northern edge of the city to Cabrillo National Monument.
This is a historical park, named in honor of Spanish explorer Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo, the first European to set foot on the west coast of the United States. He came ashore in 1542 near the are that would eventually become San Diego. The monument is situated at the south end of the Point Loma peninsula.
It’s not a large park, and can easily be explored in an hour or two depending on your appetite for historic films in the visitor center and hiking. Julie has a prodigious appetite for National Park Visitor Center films, so we wereforced happy to indulge her by watching a short movie about the Cabrillo expedition. Basically, he came, he landed, he met Native Americans, he moved on. If you’re expecting me to remember any more than that over a year later, well, you get what you pay for.
Outside, the weather was nice but the sea breezes were very strong. Hold onto your hats here. We stood on a bluff near the visitor center and had a nice view of thesmog city and the Pacific.
We weren’t in a rush, so we took a trail that descended the bluff down near the edge of the bay. It was about a mile or so, not a long hike. But what goes down must come back up, so beware this one if you don’t like climbing hills. We were content to enjoy the weather and the views.
We had no startling revelations or surprises along this hike, so I’m going to bail on further descriptions and move along to the next part of the day.
The Point Loma lighthouse stands guard over the peninsula.
On the road out of the park, we took a side turn and parked in a lot that placed us down near the Pacific Ocean. There were some cool little coves and small cliff edges that had been eroded away by the waters here that were fun to explore.
We drove north several miles, following the coast, and pulled into a parking lot at Torrey Pines State Natural Reserve. This is a park consisting of a few miles of coastline north of San Diego featuring steep, spectacular cliffs and a species of pine tree (shockingly, the Torrey Pine) that is the rarest in the nation—it only grows here and on Santa Rosa Island off the coast.
It’s also the location of a famous golf course on top of the cliffs that hosts a PGA tournament every year, but I promise that is NOT why we stopped. I did, however, try and catch a glimpse of the course as I drove past.
The parking lot is down at the bottom of the cliffs near the water, and we were able to take a short walk along the beach here while we enjoyed our gourmet picnic lunch of PB&J sandwiches.
Note, there is also a parking area on top of the cliffs at the southern end of the park. You can hike down to the beach from there (called Black’s Beach at that point), but I had read that this was a famous nude beach andJulie wouldn’t let me explore we decided not to test that bit of information.
The beach was very nice, though.
We took a short drive up the cliffs to a small visitor center for the state park. There wasn’t much to see up there, but we got a view of the coastline from the top of the bluffs.
From there, we left the ocean and drove a couple hours into the desert, because what better place to visit in the summer than the desert?
Unfortunately, there’s no real easy way to drive to Palm Springs from Torrey Pines, so we had to take some windy two-lane roads over the mountains. The combination of a winding road, lots of turns and elevation changes, bright sun beating down on us in the desert, and the back seat of a minivan finally proved able to do what the Channel Islands boat couldn’t:
Andrew got out of the van and barfed on the side of the road.
“I do NOT like Route 74,” he said.
But look at the view of the Coachella Valley!
Yeah, Drew didn’t really give a crap. And it was hot. One hundred degrees F in the shade. And there was no shade.
We headed straight for the hotel and its mediocre air-conditioning.
We were able to walk from the hotel to a strip mall next door for dinner, where we tried out Tony’s Burgers in Cathedral City.
You’ll never believe this, but they specialized in many different types of burger combinations. It was fairly impressive—they listed 34 different combinations on the menu. I went with the Texas BBQ burger, and combined with fries and a beer it hit the spot quite beautifully.
We ended the evening by waiting for the nuclear-hot sun to go down and then swam by starlight in the pool. It might have been cooler than our actual room, where the A/C was losing the battle. Good thing we were only staying one night.
Coming Up Next: Unfinished Business.
San Diego is expensive, so it was time for us to move on. But first, we wanted to make sure we saw the Pacific Ocean one more time, and not from a boat this time. The Channel Islands trip had scarred us from sailing for…well, it’s been over a year and I still don’t want to do it again.
We took a drive out to the coast around the northern edge of the city to Cabrillo National Monument.
This is a historical park, named in honor of Spanish explorer Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo, the first European to set foot on the west coast of the United States. He came ashore in 1542 near the are that would eventually become San Diego. The monument is situated at the south end of the Point Loma peninsula.
It’s not a large park, and can easily be explored in an hour or two depending on your appetite for historic films in the visitor center and hiking. Julie has a prodigious appetite for National Park Visitor Center films, so we were
Outside, the weather was nice but the sea breezes were very strong. Hold onto your hats here. We stood on a bluff near the visitor center and had a nice view of the
We weren’t in a rush, so we took a trail that descended the bluff down near the edge of the bay. It was about a mile or so, not a long hike. But what goes down must come back up, so beware this one if you don’t like climbing hills. We were content to enjoy the weather and the views.
We had no startling revelations or surprises along this hike, so I’m going to bail on further descriptions and move along to the next part of the day.
The Point Loma lighthouse stands guard over the peninsula.
On the road out of the park, we took a side turn and parked in a lot that placed us down near the Pacific Ocean. There were some cool little coves and small cliff edges that had been eroded away by the waters here that were fun to explore.
We drove north several miles, following the coast, and pulled into a parking lot at Torrey Pines State Natural Reserve. This is a park consisting of a few miles of coastline north of San Diego featuring steep, spectacular cliffs and a species of pine tree (shockingly, the Torrey Pine) that is the rarest in the nation—it only grows here and on Santa Rosa Island off the coast.
It’s also the location of a famous golf course on top of the cliffs that hosts a PGA tournament every year, but I promise that is NOT why we stopped. I did, however, try and catch a glimpse of the course as I drove past.
The parking lot is down at the bottom of the cliffs near the water, and we were able to take a short walk along the beach here while we enjoyed our gourmet picnic lunch of PB&J sandwiches.
Note, there is also a parking area on top of the cliffs at the southern end of the park. You can hike down to the beach from there (called Black’s Beach at that point), but I had read that this was a famous nude beach and
The beach was very nice, though.
We took a short drive up the cliffs to a small visitor center for the state park. There wasn’t much to see up there, but we got a view of the coastline from the top of the bluffs.
From there, we left the ocean and drove a couple hours into the desert, because what better place to visit in the summer than the desert?
Unfortunately, there’s no real easy way to drive to Palm Springs from Torrey Pines, so we had to take some windy two-lane roads over the mountains. The combination of a winding road, lots of turns and elevation changes, bright sun beating down on us in the desert, and the back seat of a minivan finally proved able to do what the Channel Islands boat couldn’t:
Andrew got out of the van and barfed on the side of the road.
“I do NOT like Route 74,” he said.
But look at the view of the Coachella Valley!
Yeah, Drew didn’t really give a crap. And it was hot. One hundred degrees F in the shade. And there was no shade.
We headed straight for the hotel and its mediocre air-conditioning.
We were able to walk from the hotel to a strip mall next door for dinner, where we tried out Tony’s Burgers in Cathedral City.
You’ll never believe this, but they specialized in many different types of burger combinations. It was fairly impressive—they listed 34 different combinations on the menu. I went with the Texas BBQ burger, and combined with fries and a beer it hit the spot quite beautifully.
We ended the evening by waiting for the nuclear-hot sun to go down and then swam by starlight in the pool. It might have been cooler than our actual room, where the A/C was losing the battle. Good thing we were only staying one night.
Coming Up Next: Unfinished Business.