24 Hours in San Diego
When US Airways was doing their 30 days for DC promos, Jeanne jumped on the $130 tickets to San Diego getting us a Friday departure arriving around 11AM and departing the next day at noon. (I wasn’t available to ask at the time so Jeanne didn’t want to commit me to a long weekend in case I wasn’t free.)
In the days leading up to our trip we were sweating our upgrade
s. When we booked, we weren’t sure if the Friday morning flight would clear but we were pretty sure the Saturday afternoon flight back would. Then a few weeks out the available first class seats on Sat dwindled to 1. Funnily enough, our Friday morning flights cleared in the usual window, but no luck on the Saturday flight.
The best part of our Friday morning flight is that it was longer than 2.5 hours so we’d be getting breakfast! Most people were going for the French toast with sausage and cinnamon apples,
which left plenty of the egg and cheese quesadilla with country potatoes and sausage for us.
The flight passed fairly quickly and soon we were headed out to the makeshift rental car shuttle stop. Terminal 2 is undergoing some construction, so to catch the rental car buses or super shuttle, you now have to cross the road and crowd onto a tiny
island where 100+ people are trying to find their bus. Avis had my car waiting up front, an awesome red Infiniti with sunroof, perfect for our adventures.
We checked in to the Four Points San Diego Downtown and then went in search of lunch near the zoo. We wound up picking Baja Betty’s from a small strip of diverse restaurants along University Ave in the Hillcrest section north of the zoo.
While we didn’t expect “real Mexican†I was not quite prepared for 2/3 of the menu to be devoted to drinks. J They’re lunch special of the day was a $5 pineapple mojito, fairly tasty and very strong.
They also had an express lunch option for $6.95. I went with the shredded beef hard taco served with chicken caeser salad, beans, and rice. Pretty good although the corn tortilla was a little oily/soggy.
Jeanne got the Paco’s fish tacos appetizer which came with 3 mini tacos of battered cod. Chips and salsa were by request and we decided to skip it.
After our adventures at the zoo, we decided to head up to a Trader Joe’s (again up on University Ave) to get some sparkling wine, cheese, fruit, and crackers. The Trader Joe’s was actually celebrating it’s 16th anniversary so we took a spin on their prize wheel, me winning kettle corm, Jeanne a box of chocolate mocha batons.
The next morning we headed out to Coronado Beach (only 15 min away) to grab breakfast and let me dip my feet in the Pacific. Research had turned up Café 1134 as a good breakfast place not far from the beach. Street parking was widely available but the meters require payment after 8AM. The Café was bustling, but it didn’t take long to get our food.
We both went with the Cortez, with eggs, sautéed shrimp, mushrooms, and cheese. I had the omelet option, Jeanne had the burrito. The salsa on the side was quite tasty but flung its contents everywhere when we opened the plastic containers.
We drove down to a public stretch of beach, but as luck would have it the fog was rolling in.
So after a few minutes of staring into the grey mist with vague shapes of surfers emerging, we decided to head back to the hotel to check out.
Fortunately we’d left plenty of time to get to the airport (only 15 min) away, because I automatically jumped on I-5N right by the hotel which doesn’t go to the airport J However that wasn’t a terrible thing since the United Club at San Diego airport was in Terminal 1, and our flight departed out of Terminal 2.
We managed to find the one security lane not using nude-o-scopes (second row, far right) and then spent the rest of the time tracking down utensils for our in-sky picnic.
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Heels First is the travels and tribulations of two twenty-something frequent fliers jumping into the world of travel. Join Keri and Jeanne as they tackle mileage runs, elite status, and of course–the perfect travel accessories.
I was relieved to see at least Jeanne ordered the fish tacos. You can’t be in San Diego and not get fish tacos!!! =D