I am writing this on Wednesday, October 22. There are a few pics.

San Diego

Seal on a Bouy

Danita is wrapping up her conference. I’ve wrapped my solo sightseeing. I have some down time waiting for her. This is a good time to share what I did on my summer vacation. :-) Our first day was getting acquainted with the Coronado Island and keeping awake until 9:00 local time.

USS Midway

Monday I took the ferry over to the USS Midway. This is an aircraft carrier that was put into service 1 week after WW II ended, and served as the flagship during the first Iraq war. The visit was quite interesting because the docents were men who had served on the Midway. Nobody can have more authority about what it’s like, for example, to take off and land a fighter jet on an aircraft carrier than a pilot who did it. It’s pretty easy to spend an entire day aboard.

1929 Cord

Tuesday I went to Balboa Park. I saw the Air and Space Museum and the car museum. Both were good museums. I was quite impressed by the mechanical talent and interest in this area. If a mueseum needs a certain type if airplane but none are available, the museum can get local volunteers to build an airworthy exact replica from scratch. Trivia time: did you know why the Cord built a front-wheel drive car? It’s because no cars of the day had a hump in the middle of the car. As a consequence, having a drive shaft from the engine to the rear wheels added 10″ of height to the car. If you wanted to make your car low to the ground, this was an issue.

A ship deploying (with sailiors in dress whites on the rails) meets a ship returning. Taken from he USS Midway.

Tuesday evening, the conference was showing “Some Like it Hot” on the beach behind the hotel. This movie, with Tony Curtis, Jack Lemon, and Marilyn Monroe, was shot at the conference hotel. It was fun. But the big story was our restaurant find. When we were walking around, I saw a Mexican Restaurant that wasn’t on the street — one had to walk down an alley to get to it. I figured any successful restaurant that could survive a location like that had to be pretty good. We ate dinner there last night. The place was obviously popular. All dining was in an outdoor courtyard with a trellise roof that made it seem almost indoors. They had Chicken Mole on the menu. But I knew it would be a great dinner when they asked if I wanted flour or corn tortillias. Most Mexican restaurants offer only flour tortillas because they are so popular. Authentic Mexican food doesn’t use flour because the indigenous people didn’t have it. Their agriculture relied on maize.

I’ll write more when we get back. I hope this finds everybody doing well.