October 31 Halloween

The fall air has come to Southern California. In the morning I am waking up to the temperature in the upper 50's and by 10 AM it is around 70 degrees.  Last Sunday we took a San Diego Harbor Cruise on the ship High Spirits. The boat was used by Tony Curtis and Marilyn Monroe for the movie "Some Like It Hot" in the early 1960's.

 

     The cruise was a two hour cruise split in two halves. The first half was the inner bay. There were tons of military ships in the harbor, the nuclear surface craft, LSD's & air craft carriers, over at North Island. The conventional engined surface craft down at 32nd Street. These were the fast frigates, destroyers, ammo supply ships and conventional supply ships. The boat in the picture below is one of the Seal delivery boats. They were traveling in a pair and I got a real nice photo of this one passing us.
There were beautiful views of the city, Coronado Island, the Silver Strand and you could even see the mountains over the border in Mexico. It was a nice guided tour. As you can see from the picture, the airport is right next to the harbor and downtown.

The second half took you out of the downtown area and headed toward the open sea. We passed Harbor Island with its hundreds of multi-million dollar yachts. Then we went past Shelter Island where the "not quite so rich" kept their million dollar yachts. After we passed Shelter Island we came to the California Sea Lions resting on the bait pens. These pens are used by the sport fishermen to purchase bait prior to entering the Pacific Ocean. The Sea Lions are just hoping for some free lunch.

 As we were heading back to the dock for the end of the tour, a pair of FA-18 fighter were taking off from North Island just as we were passing the end of the runway

It was a wonderful tour followed by lunch at the Kansas City Bar-B-Q, where they shot the sleazy bar scene from the movie "Top Gun".

October 24 San Diego Zoo

We have had a busy weekend visiting the San Diego Zoo on Saturday. The weather was just beautiful, upper 70's and sunny, just a little hazy.  We got a chance to see the Giant Panda's. We have missed them the other times we have gone to the zoo.

We also saw a nice Polar Bear exhibit.

We really enjoyed the orangutan and gorilla exhibit. They were laying there cleaning each other and once in a while they would stop and look up to see what was going on.

The Sky Ride is an aerial tram that takes you over the zoo from one end to the other. The views of San Diego were real nice.

And then we finally ended our day at the zoo.

We waited ten minutes and they would not turn around for the camera.

Gary & Sharon

October 12 Los Angeles

I had Columbus Day off so we took the Amtrak train, the Surfliner, up the coast line from San Diego up to Los Angeles. Here are a few pictures we took from the train.

We went to the Hollywood Walk of Fame, lots of stars on the side walk. Here are a couple.

We saw the Hollywood Sign.

Went to Grauman's Chinese Theater

Saw the Kodak Theater. TV makes it look a lot fancier than it really is. Amazing what they can do with the right camera angles, like Times Square in New York City.

October 11, San Diego Arrival

We arrived Monday the 5th of October in San Diego to 75 degrees and beautiful sunshine. We have a very nice second floor apartment. This is a picture out our bedroom window.

The fall weather was about to hit. Woke up Tuesday morning and went to work, it was about 65 and overcast. By 10 Am it had cleared on the coast and was a beautiful afternoon, about 72 degrees. By Wednesday the cool fall air had hit and it was only 69. By the weekend it had warmed up nicely, back to the mid seventies.
I worked Saturday and Saturday night Sharon & I went out to dinner and found a nice wood fired pizza place just down the road. It was excellent.
Sunday we slept in til 7 o'clock. Boy did that feel good. We went to the Seaport Village for lunch and listened to a live band playing 60's & 70's music outdoors in the village. They were very entertaining.

We went back to the apartment late afternoon to relax by the pool. Sharon is laying in the sun on the far side of the pool.

We are taking the Amtrak train to Los Angeles tomorrow, Monday, to do some sight seeing there. I have to go back to work on Tuesday so we are trying to make the most of my time off. I will take some pictures while we are there and post them..