Friday, August 11, 2006

Road Trip: Days Four & Five

(Yester)daily:

I walked 10 miles. I can forgive myself for not swimming.

Daily:

I'm trying to convince myself to do a few miles on the dead mill.

Trip report:

Wednesday I went up to La Jolla to see the seals and experienced a local political battle. Basically there was a children's pool built in the 30's. It's basically a sea wall that protects a little cove in La Jolla to let kids swim at the beach. At some point the beach was discovered by some seals and they pretty much took it over. It has become a place they go to for giving birth and things like that. They don't like people and if someone is on the beach, they won't rest there.

Some folks in San Diego say that it's a public beach and the seals need to cope. Others say there's 70 miles of beach in La Jolla - the seals can have this one corner. Right now the compromise is the beach is closed during pup season.

So there were no seals on the beach Wednesday when I got there. One of the no seal people was sitting in a lawn chair under his umbrella to keep the seals away. So the seals were out on a big rock in the ocean sunning themselves. I saw some playing in the water - including a highly amusing dance between a seal and a snorkler. The snorkler kept trying to follow the seal, the seal kept following the snorkler. To me, it looked like the seal was having a lot more fun than the snorkler.

I did go down the 145 steps through a claustrophobic tunnel to the Sunny Jim cave. That was pretty cool... figuratively and literally. I still can't believe I did that. Apparently a painter who had the tunnel dug over 100 years ago hired two Chinese laborers away from an opium den to dig it out. It took them two years and the thing is still standing. I'm impressed.

I did take pictures and I will scan them in when I get home. I'll also do a full trip report on a second blog.

Thursday I picked up a cheap digital camera (hurray! I can now just upload photos) and went to the Midway... which is why I logged so many miles yesterday. The thing is (was?) a floating city on its own. This was a "Rosie the Riveter" ship - built entirely by women at the end of WWII. It took 18 months for them to build it. Very cool.

I guess they keep opening up more and more of it each year, so I got to see the officers' area like the dirty shirt and clean shirt mess as well as sleeping quarters and such. There were all sorts of cool planes and choppers up on the flight deck.

Now let me plug my favorite pedicab guy since coming here. Pedicabs are a bicycle taxi that hold a couple of people. (Yes I will have a photo at some point) Some of the guys charge by the block, some by the mile - it varies. Yesterday I was at Horton Plaza ... which was a pretty cool display of architecture when it comes to setting up a mall, there'll be more in the trip blog ... and grabbed a pedicab to the Midway. The guy starts by introducing himself. His name is Dennis and he figured he was a "concierge on wheels." He only works for tips, not fares and he gave me all sorts of cool tips, pointers and such on the ride to the Midway.

His philosophy is that if you give people good ideas, information and a pleasant ride, they tip you better. I paid him $10 to take me a few blocks.... so I guess it works.

But if you're in San Diego and you see a Ball Park Pedicab guy named Dennis - he's worth it.

Well... off to go run on the deadmill downstairs before I pack up. We're hoping to go to the wild animal park and Scripps Aquarium today before we leave.

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