KatelynNovember 6, 2021 – November 13, 2021
Where We Stayed: Manchester Grand Hyatt San Diego
Trip Highlights:
- Lots of unique museums
- Interesting port watching
- Wandering in the perfect California weather
Favorite Restaurants:
This trip was very much a last minute decision, but we ended up having a great week relaxing in southern California.
It takes a long time to fly to San Diego, just because it’s so far south and west of Milwaukee. We ended up landing in San Diego around 11 pm Pacific time (1 am in Milwaukee). We were delirious, but also hungry, so we ordered some late night tacos and crashed for the night, ready to explore the city in the morning.
Our first day was also our only full day in the city in which we would not be working. After enjoying the free breakfast buffet at our hotel, we made our way to Balboa Park, which was not only a great green space within the city, but also home to many of San Diego’s museums. We had purchased a pass to visit as many museums as we wanted within the week, so we started our time exploring a few of the smaller museums.
Our first stop was the San Diego Model Railroad Museum. This was definitely one of the smaller museums within the park, but one of our favorite stops of the trip. You could tell that the people maintaining the many miles of model railroad track were so passionate about their work, and the environments themselves were so detailed and interesting to watch. Sam would have been in heaven in this place when he was a little kid, but we had a great time now as well.
We also stopped by the San Diego History Center, which was also small and focused on the history of the city of San Diego. We probably wouldn’t have stopped at this one if we didn’t have the museum pass, and we only stayed there for maybe 15 minutes, but it was a nice little pitstop before we moved on.
Our final stop of the day at Balboa Park was their cactus garden. I loved this area of the park. I thought the different varieties of cactus were so interesting to wander through, and the garden itself was elevated so you could see the rising ridges and hills of the city beyond the park’s limits. I genuinely loved wandering through here (as you might be able to guess by the cheesy grin on my face in the photos below).
Our lunch stop today was at Sally’s Fish House, which is technically part of the Grand Hyatt where we were staying. Their fish tacos were fantastic here. We ended up coming back several times throughout the week.
We spent a few hours relaxing at the hotel, watching the sunset over the port before wandering into Seaport Village around dinner time. Seaport Village is a small shopping and dining area right next to our hotel on the water. We wandered into a few shops and got dinner at a nicer place by the water, however both of us were pretty disappointed with our dinners, so I won’t be recommending the restaurant we visited there.
Our week was spent working during the day and visiting museums and other interesting sites at night. After work on Monday, we visited the San Diego Air and Space Museum, and learned about the deep aviation history of the area. For dinner we visited one of San Diego’s many authentic Mexican restaurants, and I tried a San Diego staple: Carne Asada Fries. These are basically Carne Asada meat, melted cheese, and other nacho toppings loaded on top of french fries. These were delicious, but very dense. I couldn’t finish them, but they were a fun treat. For dessert we wandered over to the Gaslamp Quarter and had crepes from a gelato and creperie. They were great, but so far no crepes have lived up to the amazing crepes we had in New Orleans several years ago.
One of my favorite things about working from San Diego was that our hotel window overlooked the port of San Diego. We saw so many interesting ships pass through during the week. Two of my favorites were the several cruise ships we saw dock just down from us, and this hospital ship that we saw several times come through the area.
On Tuesday, we had another new favorite of ours in San Diego: Ketch Grill & Taps. This place was right on the water, and I had this really great octopus ceviche along with my meal, that was super fresh and enjoyable.
Our museum for that evening was the USS Midway Museum. The Midway had been an active navy aircraft carrier before it was decommissioned and turned into a floating museum. The ship itself still sits in the San Diego harbor, though it is now open to visitors to explore. The ship’s previous operations centers and crew areas were converted into a museum that visitors are able to wander through and learn about what life on the aircraft carrier was like when it was in operation. I really liked this museum, and especially enjoyed that the ship itself was the museum. After wandering through the below areas of the ship, we ended our visit on the top deck, where several military aircraft were sitting and you could see views of San Diego from the top of the ship.
Our final major museum we visited toward the end of the week was the Fleet Science Center. This was a small science museum, and definitely aimed more at families than our demographic. While we didn’t spend a ton of time here, having the museum pass definitely made it worth a quick stop. We took a few minutes to explore the outside areas of Balboa Park before heading back to the hotel for the evening.
While we spent a lot of this week working, having access to the great museums and wonderful southern California weather made it a nice escape from our typical day-to-day. I’d love to head back to San Diego and explore more in the future, as I know we barely scratched the surface of what’s to see in this beautiful city.
