Cornado Island!

It occurred to me that I should tell you where San Diego is.  It's in southern California, about two hours south of Los Angeles.  It's not too far from the Mexican border.  Tours to Tijuana used to be popular, but not so much anymore with the drug violence in Mexico.

This morning we woke up around 7am, which is incredibly early for us.  I guess our bodies are still on Central time.  I was excited to get a good start on the day, but the husband had other plans.

My husband loves to workout, and he needs to work out or he gets very grumpy.  Every time we travel he exercises, and every time we travel he forgets either his workout shorts, shirts, socks, or shoes, resulting in a last-minute trip to the nearest Target or WalMart.  This trip was no exception.  As he was preparing for a morning jog, he realized he forgot his shorts and socks.  I tried but couldn't persuade him to run in his swimming trunks and normal socks, so off to Target he went.  So much for our early start.

As he was getting his workout on, I decided to wander around our hotel.  Since it was rainy yesterday, we really didn't get to see much of it (today is beautiful!).  Plus, we recently got a new camera and I wanted to get some practice.  Here's what I shot:

View of the marina from our room:

 From May-October, the hotel holds concerts for artists like Diana Ross and the BareNaked Ladies.  I guess I'm glad we're not here at that time because I'm sure the rates go through the roof, but our room would be awesome for that:

View of our room from the outside- ours is the one with the door cracked open:

Some very vocal macaws:

The pool and hot tub area- and I even found a ping pong table!

And one of the many pretty flowers:

Once we finally got going, we went to a farmer's market we had heard about on our tour.  The City Market in Kansas City is one of my favorite things to do, so I was quite excited about a Cali farmer's market.  I imagined lots of fresh, organic berries and fruit that you can't find in Missouri.  No such luck.  The market was a bust.  It was more like a small craft fair.  I did buy a couple apples and plums from the only fruit vendor there.

Then we headed to Cornado Island, which is actually a peninsula. There is a beautiful bridge to Cornado that I didnt get any pictures of.  We learned that they were originally going to build the bridge a few miles down shore, but it would have been a short bridge.  They wanted some federal funding, and at the time the feds weren't funding any bridge projects less than two miles.  So, they moved the location of the bridge and made it windy in order to receive federal funds.  Gotta love the government!

Cornado island is supposed to have some of the most beautiful beaches around.  We weren't disappointed. I've been to a few beaches before, but mostly the destination types that are crowded with tourists.  There were people around, but Cornado Beach was not packed with beach chairs and sandcastles.

We saw birds and boards:

I really, really, really, really want to learn how to surf.  It's the number one thing on my bucket list.  But apparently it's not a smart thing to attempt while pregnant.



We walked barefoot along the beach and saw the famous Hotel Del Cornado, which was built in 1888.  It's huge!  They are supposed to have a great Sunday brunch, but at $80 per person, not including drinks/tax/tip, we passed.

We came across some pretty rocks, where I mugged for a photo shoot:

I took pictures of Mark while he wasn't looking:

And finally we left the beach and drove to a place called Miguels, which has decent Mexican food.  While there, we realized they are owned by the same group that owns the seafood place we had last night.  The food was good, the atmosphere was amazing!  It was tucked behind some buildings and had an awesome outdoor area.

Then we headed back to our hotel.  Time for a pool-side nap!