Chaos Leaves Town

After a great week in San Diego, headed back eastward with a destination in mind. I had originally contacted the DeAnza Springs Resort back when I was in Mexico about staying there as I was bored with El Centro and wanted to try a new place. Had some confusion about their prices, so I contacted them via em and the manager happened to get my email and responded directly. There’s a link to my blog as part of my email signature and the manager offered to give me a discount if I’d give them some exposure. Well, sure I can! So the offer was a weeks stay for $125 instead of $256. The offer was pretty good, and I did want to visit, that lowered price changed my plan from a 2-3 day stay to a 7 day stay.

It only takes 1.5 hours to reach DeAnza from where I was parked at the county park in San Diego so I dawdled there until the 11 am checkout time, then took the freeways east. I did have to stop at a view area to top off my surge tank. After a long uphill pull, my warning light about low coolant came on. I’d installed the new surge tank just a couple months before so I wasn’t that surprised since I wasn’t sure I’d put enough juice in. Topped it off though, and the light went off. I’d just done this road a week before so didn’t take many pictures. Some of the hills were a long climb.

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After a solid hour of wandering through the Star of India, published last time, it was time to move on to the other ships and subs crowding the museum’s dock. I’ll try to get most of them posted this time because it’s almost August now IRL and there’s new adventures to be documented here on the blog. These boats and ships though…so interesting that I wanted to publish about them.

Here’s another look at the dock map. Press and hold the CTRL key on your keyboard while you rotate the scroll wheel on  your mouse to zoom in on the map.

But first, I wanted to tour the HMS Surprise. Continue reading →

As I was touring the USS Midway, I couldn’t help but notice that there were some tall ships not far from the Midway. Like 2 miles away, up the coast and docked along the San Diego harbor. I could see the sails hanging from the masts from the height I was at. I’d been checking things online for several days and somehow missed seeing anything about the tall ships. But this great view the upper decks of the Midway afforded, I decided that I’d make time for a tour of the Maritime Museum San Diego.

After I finished touring the Midway, picked up my car and drove the two miles north up to the Maritime Museum and grabbed one of their brochures, scoped out the parking situation, and made a plan to visit the next morning, planning on arriving early enough to score one of the dockside metered parking spaces. Also planned to park in a centrally located spot so I could periodically come and fill the meter without much hassle. The meters all take either coins or cards. Very handy. And the parking was within a few steps of the entrance to the museum and the museum itself is made up of several restored or reproduction ships from the 1500’s to the Viet Nam war. So you walk the docks as they say visiting one ship at a time.

After gathering some info, went home and rested. All that walking aboard the Midway can take it out of you. Got online and read what I could about the Maritime Museum venue. Their web site isn’t much of an inducement to go visit them though. But it is an adventure of touring ‘Sail to ship to sub’ as they put it. The Yelp reviews I read about it had more content about the museum then their own web site does…which seems to be focused on renting the museum sections out for parties and weddings.

The next morning when I left the county RV park, there were these horses. They came in while I wasn’t watching or I would have come visit them the afternoon previous. It rained a bit last night and the one on the left shrunk. This park has lots of activities for horse people and many horse trails to travel. Have several RV or tent rental spaces with these horse corrals. Kinda cool.

After about 20 freeway travel minutes later, had no trouble finding a parking space right in front of the museum. Then waited the 10 minutes or so until the museum opened. You can see 3 of the attractions in this picture that I’ll eventually tour. The sub, the Berkeley, and the 3 masted ship, the HMS Surprise, next to it. Cost was minimal. I don’t recall how much or where I paid, either inside the Berkeley, or at the kiosk in front of the next ship over. Maybe $8? Not much anyway. You get your hand stamped and that allows you on all water craft. I think the Star of India was an extra charge maybe? Or not. Can’t remember. You should go and let me know. Yeah. Continue reading →

Last time, I had taken the Hornblower hour long harbor cruise to get a good look at the ships around the harbor. I’d planned my visit to the waterfront to include visiting the USS Midway Museum and I’d allowed all day for these two things. But I suppose if you’re not ex-Navy like I am and have less of an interest in ships, a half day would suffice.

Here’s a shot of the Midway from the Hornblower as we docked. My car is somewhere with those others.

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Most folks are well aware of the majestic San Diego Zoo. One of the world’s oldest, largest, and most copied zoos. I’ve been lucky in that I’ve visited a couple times and this time was able to spend all day, or rather most of the day here touring the compounds at my leisure. I drove from the Summit Meadows RV park where I was staying the 16 miles to the zoo in 20 odd minutes and avoided rush hour traffic by leaving around 9 am on a fine April 4th Wednesday. Traffic was fairly light. Arriving at the zoos free parking lot, I first parked way off in the boonies and after walking around a bit to get my bearings, drove over closer to the front gate so I walked into the park around 9:50. I had purchased a ticket on line and my UPC code was scanned right at the entrance turnstiles, bypassing all the people who hadn’t prepurchased their tickets and were now standing in long lines. I’d read enough about the zoo that I knew to head straight for the bus tour gate but even with my early arrival on a weekday while schools were in session, it was still crowded with lots of parents with school age and younger kids in line. After getting in line there at the bus kiosk took almost 1/2 hour to actually board the bus. The buses are double decker with the top side uncovered so I steered myself into the upstairs line for the best view. Turned out I sat on the wrong side of the bus as nearly all the good pictures would have been taken from the other side.

Heading for the buses along with some other folks that were hurrying in my direction towards the buses.

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After arriving at the county park and hooking up, as I mentioned last post, I was surprised to find that it has free Wifi though it’s not mentioned on their website. They didn’t answer my email query about it before I planned the trip either. So, good, won’t have to use my phone data. The Wifi gave me the ability to really plan my week long visit in San Diego. There’s plenty to see, and I had plenty of time to do whatever I wanted.

First things first, next morning drove around the area to find a grocery store, found one, than spied several places nearby that might be good to eat if I came home from being a tourist and didn’t feel like cooking. As I left and returned to the RV park, spied 3 cars parked under the overpass. Looked like homeless to me.

Than after that nearby roaming, spent time on the internet researching for bargains and discount tickets for the attractions in San Diego. I did find an organization that had some specials where they combined several attractions and give a discount for buying their package. Did save some money but not a lot. Spread my plans out so I’d be busy the entire week with Friday and Saturday off, but not so busy that I’d lose interest.

After arranging all that, I just drove in the direction I’d be taking the next day and learned my way around town a little. Just a leisurely day on the road in a big city finding where things were. No biggie. Did crane my neck at those few light rail stations I’d pass and didn’t hardly see anyone at them. And the stations didn’t seem to be in very good spots either. Also checked the internet for bus and train stations and their schedules near me and it turned out that I was miles from the nearest train station. Far enough that the bus ride would take an hour just to get to the nearest train station, than another 20 minutes to anywhere. Not good. Even getting a senior discount card couldn’t rescue that idea. OK, this is California, land of the car, so guess I’ll be driving.

Next morning, headed back to Old Town Downtown. This would be the site of the original settlement from a couple hundred years back. They’ve kind of made it touristy with all sorts of ol’ timey displays, museum, old homes and hotel open for tours, with lots of food and trinket vendors. I parked under a freeway overpass with a bunch of other cars I’d spotted when I thought I was close enough to the entrance and unlike other parking nearby, turned out that it’s free parking, and there was an open space right at the beginning of the sidewalk that would take me to Old Town.

And here I am just after walking into the Old Town attraction. Mix of haciendas and 1800’s style buildings. Plus some reproductions. This is where San Diego began as a city.

First stop is pretty much the first building in SD. A hacienda built by a Spanish family, occupied for over a century. Continue reading →

News – My computer crashed and I lost all my pictures and tons of other documents and spreadsheets. This happened a couple weeks ago and I’m finally getting back to where I can start publishing articles again. Found software to restore all (I think) of the missing pictures and then spent hours re-categorizing them. So, I’m back in good shape for writing…and we’ll begin where I left off last time, in Yuma.

After spending two months in Yuma, it was time to head over to San Diego. It was getting pretty hot, and the RV park was quickly emptying out because of that. I can see why. My Heat Pump AC system kept me nice and comfy though. Well, anyway, it was time to move on and I had a plan…

I’d sold my old satellite internet equipment to a guy over in San Diego and I’ve wanted to visit again for years. This seemed like a good time.

Yuma to San Diego is only a 3 leisurely hour trip but I still needed to leave early. First to stop for fuel for both my vehicles, and then for propane as I was running a bit low. Got out of town at 11 AM eventually. It was a Sunday so not much traffic.

After traveling through the desert area heading due west, you eventually get to this hilly area a bit past El Centro. Interesting thing about it are the giant rocks everywhere. Oh, and it’s pretty steep in places. Very long steep grades.

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In the last picture of my previous post, (re-posted below!), off in the distance, on the left side of the bridge, is a bunch of buildings. As it turns out, that’s the old territorial prison. So that is what we’ll visit today. I’d come down here specifically today to visit the prison but first I drove the 1/2 mile or so past the prison to check out the casino with it’s RV park, also passing that terrible museum mentioned in last post that’s just to my right in this picture. Up the hill a bit.

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Can’t say I’m a big fan of Yuma, but the price for staying at the RV park of $199/mo plus electric (likely to be in the $125 range) is difficult to pass up. Helps me save money for my upcoming trip NE to Sioux City, Minneapolis, Forest City, Fairfield, and perhaps Vermont. We’ll see. I would like to visit Niagara Falls once. I passed by it one time, but never really visited. Vermont may be beyond my limit of travel because I get all antsy when I go east and the RV parks, generally run down, in my experience tend to charge astronomical prices for short term and long term visits not even providing half way decent services for their visitors. Like the Wifi is generally bad. It’s maddening. But I haven’t been for 10 years so maybe at least the Wifi is better these days.

Anyway, I paid for a month shortly after I got here to Yuma and spent much of the first month working on an electronic project for a friend. That was really fun. Enjoyed that immensely. As a result, I didn’t do much touristy stuff here in Yuma at the outset. After that project was completed and sent off then I did try to do something touristy…and that was to visit a museum that’s just a few blocks from downtown. I had already made a foray downtown and found a brew pub and several other upscale places to hang out, but like I mentioned last time, the downtown core is kind of blah so only hung out there a couple times the first month I was in Yuma.

During one visit downtown, I’d traveled outside the core a couple miles up a hill across an old timey bridge and found the Indian reservation (also has a casino) and they had a big sign along the roadway advertising a museum. Turned in and found that it was once an Indian school. One of those run by Catholics where the kids weren’t allowed to speak their native language. The buildings on the property were in poor shape in many cases but based on the signs size and age, figured at least the museum would be good. There were the abandoned buildings, and on the same grounds were actively used police station, tribe meeting center, and fish resources center. From the hill these facilities are on, I could see the casino with large RV park down the slope on flatlands a short drive away.

Wandering around in my car trying to find the museum proper I came across this nifty RV parked next to one of the buildings. Note the diorama setup on the roof. There was a fence so I couldn’t get closer, so used my telephoto for some closeups.

Pretty neat. Someone went to a lot of trouble. Continue reading →