San Diego Sunshine and Beer

San Diego

It’s kind of amazing to think that we’ve never been to San Diego before. People love to talk about the weather, the water, the chill vibes, but at 8 hours round trip, it’s a little hard to justify this as a good weekend trip. Luckily I had a conference at the world-famous San Diego Convention Center, home to the San Diego Comic-Con each year. The conference took place in late September, and we got to experience a strangely warm fall that saw temperatures in the 90’s. With it ending on a Wednesday, Miranda flew in and we took parts of the next few days to see what made this city so cool. We knew we’d find breweries, good food, and history.

Downtown San Diego

Our first post-conference evening we were still staying at the Margo Hotel in the Gaslamp district. This gave us easy access to a handful of breweries and a shorter walk to the USS Midway, so we took advantage of that. For lunch that day, we ate at Tacos El Gordo based on the recommendation of one of my co-workers. This proved to be a mistake, mostly because the food was excellent and it warped our opinion of all other tacos for the rest of the trip. It’s a cool little corner shop, where you can be in and out in just a few minutes. You walk directly up to the cook who is preparing the type of taco you want, order, and then move on to the next one or pay. The pork tacos al pastor were the best we’d ever had and, for me, it wasn’t even close. We left and started making our way to the waterfront.

As we approached the water, we veered away from the giant carrier to check out the memorials that included one for Taffy 3, Bob Hope and military members, and a giant statue of the famous kiss celebrating the end of the war. From here we could also see Coronado Island, hosting two massive supercarriers and an assortment of support ships. Next up was the short walk to the USS Midway. This was going to be the highlight of the trip for me. The Midway was commissioned shortly after WWII and served all the way through Operation Desert Storm, albeit with a number of modifications along the way. I have never been allowed to touch so many things on a museum ship and Miranda was feeling a little disgusted by all the germs I was picking up. Luckily there was hand sanitizer everywhere. The tour started with a short film, partially narrated by George Gay, the ensign who was shot down during the Battle of Midway, and watched the entire attack against the Japanese fleet unfold. As the only surviving member of his squadron, he spent the rest of his life telling their story.

After the video, we went straight up to the flight deck to take a look at the large collection of aircraft. The Midway, early in its career, operated propeller aircraft like Avengers, Corsairs and Devastators that carried the battle all the way to the Japanese home islands. She finished her career launching jet powered Hornets, Intruders, and Prowlers against Iraqi positions in Kuwait. We toured the squadron ready-rooms, some of the living space, and even visited an area dedicated to the men from the carrier’s air wing that were shot down over Vietnam. Our last stop on the ship was a walk through the gift shop, a gift shop that is not taking full advantage of the hilarious squadron names I might add. We walked down the waterfront, past a handful of shops before turning back towards the hotel. We dropped into Villains Brewing Company for a beer. They didn’t have the biggest menu but the decor was interesting. We decided to order a pizza from Far Corner and head back to the room to enjoy a bottle of wine that I’d picked up a couple of days earlier.

Bears, Birds, and Beer

We started our first full day moving hotels, now that the work trip was officially over, it was time to move on up the hill. We picked the Holiday Inn Express San Diego Downtown, the scenery changed a little bit, for the worse. The homeless population picked up quite a bit, but we still didn’t feel threatened. As many homeless people as we saw, they kept to themselves and we never really felt like we were in a dangerous situation.

Our next stop was one of the most recognizable places in the entire city, the San Diego Zoo. At the beginning of our trip, this was one of only two zoos in the United States with pandas, by the end of our trip, Atlanta got a pair, regardless we knew where we had to go. Pandas are also a favorite of Miranda, so we wanted to get there early. We walked all the way to the back of the park and got to the panda enclosure before it really got busy. We also got to check out a red panda, which is my favorite. The panda was exactly as we expected, eating and minding its own business. The red panda slept most of the time we were there. It moved a few feet and then fell back asleep. There was a small gap in the fence covering that actually allowed us to get a much better view from the line queue outside.

Once we’d gotten our priorities taken care of, we began checking off section after section, first hippos, and then monkeys of all kinds, and then the flamingos before reaching the bottom again and catching the Skyfari gondola back up. It doesn’t provide much of a view and really seemed to be more of a method of getting from one side of the park to the other quickly. As we started down another path, we came across one of the coolest bird enclosures we’ve ever seen. The Aviary Viewing Deck allowed us to walk in with African birds of all types flying all around us. There’s an upper balcony and then a lower deck that allowed us to walk the length of the enclosure. We recognized several of the birds from our Africa trip the previous year, especially the white-fronted bee eater, which nested across the river from us in Masai Mara. The next bird highlight was the penguin exhibit. We walked up and saw two dozen penguins just standing in a small box near the door, we had a suspicion that it was lunch time. Sure enough, after a few minutes, one of the staff came out and began hand feeding the whole group.

Our next stop was the Koala Country, the largest population of koalas outside of Australia. We walked the entire path and found nearly all of them sleeping. Each one of them had their personalized spots in the fork of their tree, with some additional man-made supports. After the koalas we explored some familiar territory, the Urban Jungle filled with a number of our friends from Africa. After about four hours of wandering, we considered the mission accomplished and grabbed an Uber towards our first beer stop.

Enjoying beer on the Stone Brewing patio

The first brew stop was East Village Brewing Company. There were several good beer options and a lady making tacos and other Mexican dishes on a grill outside. They were serviceable, but nothing like our experience the previous day. Our second stop was a bust as it appeared the Mission Brewery in this area had closed down. We walked down the block to The Church by The Lost Abbey for another beer flight and some Jesus, in the form of a 3D printed figurine they were giving away.

Our final stop of the evening was Stone Brewing, yes THAT Stone Brewing. We found a handful of beers we need to talk to our local distributor about, because it appears they aren’t sending us some of the really great stuff we found that evening. We sat out on their patio and enjoyed the late afternoon as the temps began to drop. We decided this was going to be it for us, so we put an order in with Aaharn Downtown Thai restaurant next door and settled in for pub trivia to finish the night off.

Coronado

Friday was back to work day, albeit remote. Miranda got some future trip planning done while I got caught up after being at the conference for most of the week. Our Thai from the previous night was such a healthy portion, that it served as lunch for the day as well.

After work we strolled down 5th Avenue, which we had read was home to a number of shops and restaurants. It was pretty touristy, although we did pop into the Ghirardelli Ice Cream & Chocolate Shop with the intention of getting a sweet treat, however $25 for a hot fudge sundae is ridiculous, so we walked on. Our goal was to catch the water taxi over to Coronado, but we didn’t see it right away, and by the time we did find it, it was going to be another 30 minute wait, so we opted to Uber over the Coronado Bridge. It was certainly not the tallest bridge we’d ever been on, but it did offer quite the view. We walked into Coronado Brewing Company for some beer and dinner. We had a couple of hours before sunset, and only a 30 minute walk to the beach, so we grabbed a flight, and then another, and then a couple of pints to go with our fish & chips and chicken strip dinner. We’d managed to find a couple of seats at the bar, and then were entertained by a couple of old timers on one side of us, and the annoying dating rituals of Gen Z on the other side. Luckily our bartender was fantastic, the beer was good, and we did not leave hungry.

We left and began our walk towards the Hotel del Coronado on the opposite end of the island, with its long beach and famous sunset. Unfortunately, we picked a cloudy evening, so pictures weren’t great, but we took them anyway.

North Park

We decided to pivot a bit on our last full day in San Diego. As many great things as we found to do, we were ready to try a few new streets, so we took an Uber up to North Park, a spot that had been recommended by another one of my coworkers. We got a nice, lazy start and then grabbed an Uber and made our first stop Pure Project North Park. This brewery had an excellent patio, good beer, excellent swag, and a very peaceful vibe. We hung out here for almost two hours before setting out to check out some of the shops on our way to the next brewery. Our most interesting find was a military surplus shop that was going out of business. I would have brought a good number of things home if we hadn’t been restricted to carry-on luggage. After about a half hour of rummaging around, we continued on to North Park Beer Company for another flight and some lunch. This was a fun stop, a large seating area with high ceilings, cool swag (Miranda even bought something), and smash burgers for lunch.

Our final stop was the Belching Beaver Brewery North Park, a strange name for a fairly pedestrian bar. There were several TVs and tables around the central bar, and unfortunately that was about it. The swag wasn’t great, the beer was pretty limited, and there were no food options, however we noticed that the other locations did have some solid options.

San Diego is an unlikely weekender. Flights from St. Louis are limited, and we lose a whole day coming home. Luckily, we were able to piggyback a work trip to get a short trip in without having to burn any vacation. San Diego is a beautiful city, with a great brewery scene, wonderful climate, and excellent food options. If we could have spent more time here, we could have explored more of the surrounding areas. I suppose that’ll just have to be a retirement goal.