Sunny San Diego

Hi everyone. Before I jump into sharing what we’ve been up to lately, we want to thank everyone who commented on the last post about Phineas. It means a lot to us that so many people cared about our sweet boy. We are incredibly touched that even those of you who never met him (or us) took the time to write a little something. It makes us very thankful that we got to share his adventures from the last year and half with all of you. We’re still struggling to find our new normal without him, and this blog will never be the same without his goofy grin, but we are comforted by the fact that his memory lives on.

This month we’re in San Diego at the Mission Bay RV Park. It’s the first time we’ve ever spent the entire month in one place, and will be the longest continuous amount of time that we’ve had full-hookups. In fact, when we pulled in and hooked up all our hoses and power cords we realized that it had been nearly 4 months since the last time we had hook-ups of any kind. Bring on the long showers and copious use of electric appliances! Mission Bay is not the most scenic of parks. Basically it’s just a parking lot with hook ups and a few trees sprinkled around. Each site backs up to a small strip of grass, and if you want to pay the big bucks you can get a site that backs up to the harbor with a view of the water through a chain link fence.

At the RV park

We got pretty lucky with our spot on the far edge of the park. The sites over here are smaller, which means the majority of RVs that frequent the park will not fit. Good news for us, since that decreases our chance of having neighbors. The site on our curb side (where the door is) is probably the smallest in the park, so with the exception of our first night here, there has been no one in this site. That means we can leave our door open and not be staring at the RV next door. We also have a very small slice of a water view if you look past the asphalt and through the fence.

Out the door view- empty space next door and a faraway view of the harbor

What the park lacks in beauty, it makes up for with location. We are right on the bay with a beautiful grassy park next door, and miles of walking/biking paths in either direction. This sunset shot was taken from the bike path during an after work ride one day last week. Pretty stunning right?

Sunset over Mission Bay

Last weekend we took the bike path all the way over to the boardwalk on Pacific Beach. It was a 12 mile round trip journey that traveled along the bay and over to the open ocean.

Condos on the bay, Looking across the bay at the city, Downtown San Diego far in the distance

Boats on the beach

When we reached the boardwalk we rode along it for a bit soaking in the ocean breeze before heading back to the bay.

Pacific Beach Boardwalk

Our other weekend activity was a visit to the farmers market. San Diego is a haven for farmers markets. Any day of the week you can find at least one market somewhere in the city. Last year we visited the Hillcrest Market. So this year to mix it up a bit, we chose the Sunday market in the up-scale neighborhood of La Jolla. It was great market with crafts, prepared foods, and of course, lots and lots of fresh fruits and veggies. We had recently been to the grocery store so I didn’t go crazy, but we did end up with some delicious apples, a bag of tangerines, a loaf of bread, and a pretty flower called a Protea. There were quite a few holiday themed booths selling fresh greens and poinsettias. It’s still strange to see Christmas stuff on display when the weather is 70 degrees and sunny.

Citrus, Winter squash & Poinsettias

Speaking of Christmas, we put up our decorations. These are the same decorations as last year. I thought about adding something to the display, but we really don’t have the space. We also have a string of lights outside. No picture, but again, they are the same as last year.

Christmas in the Airstream

We also got into the holiday spirit by attending a holiday parade in the funky neighborhood of Ocean Beach, or OB as the locals call it.

OB Holiday Parade

Parade watchers and palm trees

This parade had everything. Volkswagons, Woodies, local politicians and beauty queens, a tribute to The Big Lebowski, performers on stilts, a marching band, bagpipers, lots & lots of kids on bikes, a mustache-themed float, tons of boats all decked out with lights and music, and lots of floats from local businesses, including a pizza place with a tree made entirely of pizza boxes. This was our first holiday parade, and our first night-time parade. Pretty sure it’s ruined us for all other parades.

Volkswagons & a tribute to The Big Lebowski

Other than that we’ve been laying pretty low, working on some projects around the airstream, taking advantage of our urban location to do some shopping, and eating out far too often. More on all that next time.