Sun Diego

Aaahh San Diego – we decided to visit here for Jared’s 30th birthday. It had been almost ten years since I’d previously visited, and Jared’s always wanted to go, so seemed like a fun weekend trip! Our plans? Lots of breweries, visiting La Jolla and doing a sea kayak tour, walking around the Gaslamp District on a food tour, and enjoying the weather.

We made it in Thursday night and our first stop was of course a brewery – North Park Brewing in Banker Hill. We got good beers and split a tasty fried chicken sandwich and fries. Then, we made it to our AirBnB in Mission Bay where we’d be staying for 3 nights.

Friday

We started the morning by visiting Trilogy Sanctuary , a really cool rooftop cafe with yoga on the patio. We split a “Shroomed” latte and breakfast bowl – delicious (but almost too healthy tasting!). Our sea kayak tour was at 11AM, and we were a little dismayed to see all of the fog. We checked in with Bike and Kayak tours for our excursion, and by the time we got on the water, the weather had turned and the sun was shining through! Unfortunately, we didnt bring our phones / sunglasses on the water (on their recommendation with risk of losing them), so no picture evidence but it was beautiful to be kayaking on the reserve, and we learned a lot about the wildlife. The tour itself was a “sea caves” tour, so we floated to the cliffs and even got to kayak through one of the sea caves. Also, we got to get up close and personal with the local sea lions and that was a really cool experience – some were swimming in the waters near the kayaks! On the way back to shore after an hour and a half, we even got to see a bunch of leopard sharks a few yard from shore (they’re completely harmless to humans – over the summer, they come by the hundreds to mate in the shallow waters). Very cool experience!

Next stop? More food! On our list (and recommended by friends), we stopped at El Pescador for lunch – we split an appetizer of ceviche, then Jared got the “El Pescador” sandwich – Dungeness Crab, Medium Shrimp, Bay Shrimp, and Smoked Salmon (YUMMY) and I got a teriyaki swordfish sandwich. Thoroughly satisfied, we drove down to Ocean Beach to hit up some breweries. Along the same strip, we were able to visit Kilowatt (which I’d visited another location years prior), California Wild Ales (super sour beers), and Ocean Beach Brewing.

For a beer break, we drove down to Sunset Cliffs Natural Park to see the sunset over the Pacific Ocean. The drive itself was beautiful, and we wound our way up the road, passing multi-million dollar homes to the left, and surfer vans to the right with their owners hitting the waves. We found a spot on the side, and brought down our chairs (nice Airbnb amenity) to our selected viewpoint. It was beautiful to watch the surfers in the water as the sun set, and look up and down along the coast. After sitting for a bit after the sun went down, we went back to Ocean Beach to get dinner at Mike’s Taco Club (California burrito is a must).

Full to our heart’s content, but still having a second stomach for beer, we visited Harland Brewing as our last stop of the night, which happened to be a short three-minute drive from the Airbnb. These were probably my favorite beers of the day, so I’m glad we ended the night on a high!

Saturday

More food and beer please! We ventured our way into Downtown San Diego today (Gaslight District) for our Secret Food Tour. It was only us, and another family so it felt very much like a VIP tour! We tried lumpia appetizers at The Lumpia, a melt burger at The Melt, baja fish tacos at Taco Centro, the famous California burrito (has fries on the inside) in a hole-in-the-wall called Cheuys, and finished off with ice cream at The Cali Cream. To say we were stuffed was an understatement!

Our tour ended around 2PM, so we wanted to hit up some breweries afterwards (North Park is the neighborhood to visit for a fun and walkable brewery experience). In total, we ended up visiting Pure Project, Barley and Sword, GOAL Brewing, SEEK Beer Co, and Fall Brewing. I think one of my favorite was Pure Project – they had some really funky and unique beers! We fueled up on, yes, more tacos, before calling it a night.

Sunday

Our flight was around 2PM today, so we didn’t have too much time to spend exploring. Our plan today was to drive up to Torrey Pines State Reserve South Beach and do a lil nature trail along the beach. Nothing too strenuous, but it was nice to stretch our legs (and burn off some of the excess food we had eaten the previous day). We saw some nice wildlife (various birds) and plants; the trail wound up along the side of a road, then popped out on the shore and we walked back to our car along the beach.

For our very last meal, we took the recommendation from the family on the food tour and hit up Hawaiian Fresh Seafood (um YUM – we got some delicious poke and fried ahi belly).