We explored La Jolla today, and had a good time.
It felt a bit cold this morning, but it’s actually 48F outside and there’s no condensation on the windows. Yay to San Diego for the warmer weather. I looked at the weather for the next few places we’ll go, and it is 9F in the Grand Canyon. Yikes. I’ll keep an eye on this, but we may need to reconsider where we stay and how we visit.
We had our normal morning routine, though Bella started a little slower, but did get caught up later in the morning, and even got some math assessments done. Both girls were focused on getting work done, and only really took one bigger break from school. They were both done around 11 or so.
I got my writing done, some work done, and booked a camground for the Phoenix area, then went for a bike ride. There’s a nice long trail that runs along a river next to our campground, and the trail goes all the way to the Piers by San Diego, so I took that trail. It was a nice bike ride, easy and mostly flat, but once you get to the Pier, it’s all commercial and private, and a bit up the road, on non trail surface is the San Diego Naval Base. I rode on the bike lanes for some time hoping there would be a nicer pier or marina area to see, but I didn’t want to extend my ride too long, so when I hit 40 minutes, I turned around. I could see big ships behind the port, but no place for a nice direct view of anything. On the ride back I stopped quickly at Pepper Park for a restroom break. Nice little park by the water, next to a boat launch, and there were a few people fishing right there. I just kept going from there and made it back within 30 minutes. The trail is definitely easy enough to take the family.
When I got back to the campground, I stopped at the office to see if we could extend our stay, and they actually said they did not have any sites available. Now, I’m here already and I can see plenty of sites available, so not sure what the deal is, but ok… I left that alone for now.
When I arrived back, the girls were almost done with school and Carol was working on lunch and dishes, etc. Since the girls were almost ready, we decided we’d leave early and just have sandwiches and leave the stuff Carol was making for dinner. That way we could enjoy as much of the nice day it was as we could. It was in the 70s, so we wanted to hit up some beaches and just check out some of the ocean front in the area.
I looked up recommended beaches online and where they were in the map, and we decided to start at the northern most one, which is Black’s Beach, just a bit above La Jolla. The descriptions did say it is a gay nude beach, but that it is pretty awesome, and there’s a cliff hike down that is pretty cool as well. We drove there, and it was a quick twenty some minute drive. When we got there, we saw a big enough parking area with some room, and we also saw they have a glideport right there, which is where people jump out with their hangliders. There’s not a ton of infrastructure there, aside from what is there for the glideport. The girls had to use the porta-potties, and even though Carol was a little hesitant about going down the cliff on the little trail\path they had, we went down and towards the beach. That access is pretty high up and you do walk for a good 10 minutes to get to the bottom, but the path is smooth and not too steep. The views as you walk down are amazing. Views of the cliff and the beach front, then La Jolla from afar. Super nice walk down.
When we got down, the beach is pretty big. Lots of sand and lots of beach front. And it didn’t take a minute to spot a naked old man. Then another… and then another guy. There was a good amount of people actually down there, but not many naked people, the few we saw were older men, and only one younger guy. We had forewarned the girls, so they didn’t make a big deal about it, but did ask why people like to be naked. Hahahahah… There were quite a few people surfing as well. Crazy to see surfers going down that cliff with their suits on and surfboard, then back up, but they did (and do). We walked around the beach area for a while, it was a nice walk and we all enjoyed the warm day and even walking on some super cold water. Even though we were enjoying our walk, we turned around to go back so we could check out the next beaches. The walk back up was a little more work, made worse having masks on, so we took it off when no-one was around, which was most of the walk. And we enjoyed the views as we went up, so pretty.
From there, we drove towards La Jolla to check out the beaches there. I had written down Ja Jolla Cove and Caverns, and Kid Pools, etc… all the attractions I found online. As we drove in, the town is actually nice, but the beach front areas are small, and didn’t have much sand, so not really good spots to stop and relax by the beach with the kids. We first drove through the main beach, it was ok, but we wanted more sand, so we kept going… and from there, the beaches were pretty, but had less and less sand space, so we eventually went back to the main beach area.
We found a spot by the sand and parked for the rest of the afternoon. The sand in that spot was packed and wet, and also had streaks of black. The girls enjoyed playing in the sand, making castles and shapes. Carol and I relaxed a bit, chatted and then played freebee for quite some time. It was a great time. We watched the sun setting while we threw the freebee around, and enjoyed it. Just as the sun set, we decided to leave.
I drove through the coast line most of the way, until we got to where the peninsula starts near San Diego, then took the highway. The coast line is nice, lots of great views, and nice looking homes.
When we got back, we did our normal end of day routine. Showers, dinner, TV.
It was a nice first day checking out the San Diego, La Jolla area.
