Fodor's Travel Talk Forums - San Diego/Palm Springs Trip Report

Very detailed trip report below. Let me know if you have any questions!

Friday, September 14, 2007
Depart Houston at 7:15AM and arrived in San Diego at 8:44AM. We rented a car from Hertz (had to take a shuttle to get to the rental car places--not very clear at the airport). We picked up our Grand Prix and headed up to Torrey Pines Reserve. We did make a pit stop at Whole Foods where we ate Houston time lunch (San Diego time breakfast--The sandwiches were great!) We drove up there and went on the razor point hike. It was beautiful to see such desert-like scenery which overlooks onto the blue beach below. The smell was great in the air (very herby) and the sun was shining so bright. I had put on capri jeans and a top to fly down to San Diego and at some point in the hike I was desperate to rip it off. Something about being 5 1/2 months pregnant made the heat unbearable. Fortunately we made it back from the hike in one piece . . . I don't know how Jeremy would have done carrying back his pregnant wife. We got back to the car where I changed quickly into some shorts. We drove down to the beach below and put our feet in . . . freezing cold, but gorgeous! Next stop was La Jolla . . . trying to find parking was a bit pscyho, but we finally found something far off. We got out of the car and looked into the ocean. There were seals laying out on some large rocks. It was pretty neat. We walked around the cove and then went to find Houston time dinner (San Diego time lunch). We went to George's at the Cove and went to the third floor Ocean Terrace restaurant - open patio with umbrellas overlooking the water. Jeremy ordered the skirt steak sandwich and I had the fish tacos. The tacos were tasty and light. Jeremy's sandwich was good, but he said the fish tacos were better. We also conned ourselves into getting the Berry Cobbler with vanilla ice cream . . . it was AWESOME!! We think it is the best we have ever had. Apparently this is a seasonal dessert, so get it if it is on the menu. By this time I was beat and ready to head to the hotel. We drove up to SpringHill Suites San Diego Rancho Bernardo/Scripps Poway. We decided to stay here because of the price and location (about 20 minutes from the airport . . . short drive for a Houstonian). We had a nice suite with a comfy King size bed, hot breakfast, and we were in a nice suburb of San Diego. The grocery store, restaurants, shops, and movie theatre were within one exit of the freeway. Jeremy and I watched some tube and then crashed out pretty early.

Saturday, September 15, 2007
When you crash early the night before, you get up early the next day. I was awake at 2 a.m., so we watched some tube and then went back to bed for a while. We ran out to the local grocery store to get some essentials and were back here by 7 a.m. for the full yummy breakfast (sausage, eggs, fruit, yogurt, waffles, english muffins, coffee, juice, milk). We ate, took showers and headed out for Mission Beach. We got there and had a walk down the beach and watched the surfers for a bit. We then headed to Carbrillo Monument located in Point Loma. We went down to the tidepools and got onto some of the rocks and took some beautiful pictures. We then drove up to the top to have a view of San Diego and the surrounding area. It was not clear in the far distance, so we couldn't really see the mountains that were behind San Diego. The lighthouse at the top would have been neat if we could have climbed to the actual light, but that was closed. :( After this we were starving for lunch and headed to Point Loma Seafoods on the pier. We got to the parking lot and it was SLAMMED! There was valet or a parking lot (there is a fee for both). We finally got into the parking lot and not one parking space. We thought man this Point Loma Seafoods must be awesome. We drove around some more and finally gave up and went to Pizza Nova (free parking too). It was great! We had Thai Chicken Pizza and Chipotle Lime Salad with Chicken (you only need half an order for two people). We then walked over to the Point Loma Seafood restaurant just to see what all the hub bub was and in my opinion it was overrated. You go in and there is all this raw fish and seafood in cases. You go up to the counter, order your food and wait to pick it up. There was limited seating inside and you just had to find a place in one of the few tables outside or sit on a step with your food. Everything looked fried from what we saw. The jury is out for this place, but it looked like Long John Silver's to us. We were so thankful we skipped it though. At this point, I was interested in heading back north to our hotel area. We decide on going to see a movie at the local Edwards Cinema at Mira Mesa. The shopping center that the theatre was located in was awesome. We went walking around and ducked into Barnes and Noble Bookstore until our movie (The Bourne Ultimatum) started. We watched the movie and headed back to the hotel for a pit stop. We then went to eat at a place called Sammy's Wood Fired Pizza off of Scripps Poway Parkway. Jeremy had the Roast Chicken Calzone (he said it was yummy) and I had the Curry Coconut Soup (did not taste like anything I would have expected, but pleasantly good). The restaurant had seating outside and inside. Next time I would sit outside for dinner. After this we went Baskin Robbins and had some ice cream (Jeremy-Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough, Me-Jamoca Cookies and Cream). We came back to the hotel and crashed out.

Sunday, September 16, 2007
Today we headed out to Coronado to see the beautiful beach and grab lunch. The beach is rated as one of the top ten in America, but we didn't see that it was any better than the Mission Bay or La Jolla beaches. It was nice though and there are plenty of shops and restaurants. We had fun making sand castles and browsing the shops and decided to grab lunch at the Rhinoscerous Cafe. Skip it - the food was mediocre. Then we drove to Balboa park to see the Spreckle's outdoor pipe organ which was beatiful. They play every Sunday at 2pm. There are plenty of museums here for all tastes. Balboa Park also has an excellent restaurant called El Prado. (The food there is fantastic, but we didn't eat there until Wednesday night).
We were a little tired so we headed back to the hotel and they recommended a Thai restaurant that was a few exits north called "Spices Thai Cafe". It didn't look like much, but the food was great! We had the green curry chicken and some spring rolls. Plenty of food. We then drove up the hill (at the intersection to get into our hotel) to check out some of the homes. We grabbed a flyer for a home that was a little bigger than ours at 5x the price!

Monday, September 17, 2007
Today we checked out and drove up to a little town called Julian. It was historically a mining community but is now known for their apples. They had a terrible fire in 2003, and this day they were having another fire. On the way up the radio told us to avoid Julian, but when we got to the town before they said that the wild fire was way outside of Julian and that we could go. We had a lot of fun. There are all kinds of quaint shops and dessert stores and restaurants. There were not to many people in Julian that day because of the warnings, so we tried to buy something from every store we went to. We went on a tour de desserts. We had yummy cookies from the Julian Pie Company. Then we ate an amazing chocolate covered macroon from the Candied Apple (we also got a regulart macroon for the road...yum), then we bought some honey from Cider Mill Store, and some Candy from the Candy Basket. We ate a tasty lunch from the Cowgirl Cafe. She was a really neat woman with an amazing talent for soup and especially the apple dumpling. Her apple dumpling was so good that we decided not to try the apple pie in the other stores. On a side note, they recommend eating apple pie with a slice of cheese melted on top. We will try this at home somethime, but it sounds nasty.
Then we drove to Palm Springs. We took 79 N to 371 E to 74 E through the desert. It was like driving through an alien landscape. There are some fast drivers out there in the high curvy desert so use the turnouts and let them pass. Lots of beautiful photos. When you are coming down the last mountain you see the valley open up nice and green. It was quite a sight to see after all of the desert. The first town we came to was Palm Desert. It was very new and sleek. It looked like a fun place to stay, but we were headed to legendary Palm Springs. (As a side note, it appears as though all of the action is moving to Palm Desert and the other cities). We stayed at the Pepper Tree Hotel in downtown Palm Springs. Nice place to stay with spacious king size rooms at a good price. There is a continental breakfast, but not until 8am. We are early birds and did not partake for the 2 days we were there.
We ate at Kaiser Grill. It was overpriced, but the food was good. Skip the schnitzel. Chicken picatta was great. We walked back to the hotel, but the area was a little dicey as the season had not started yet.

Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Today we got up and grabbed coffee and breakfast at Koffi. It was tasty. Then we headed out to Joshua tree. What a beautiful park. If we had more time Jeremy would have loved to rock climb. The scenery is full of Joshua trees and other desert plants as well as many strange rocks. We headed back to town in time to eat lunch at Lotza Mozza. Bring an extra stomach because these are some big sandwiches. The food was really good. We had a meatball sandwich and a sausage sandwich as well as a greek salad. We then went over for some yummy ice cream from Ben and Jerry's. ALso Jeremy had a "Date Shake" made with fresh dates. Well it is a Palm Spring kind of thing, but it was just ok. There was so much food (Kaiser and Lotza Mozza) that we ate the leftovers for dinner. We had to eat early because we were taking a night excursion out to Joshua tree. We went in a Hummer with Elite Tours. We rode out to the back entrance of Joshua tree to the highest point in the park Eureka Point. We got there just in time for sunset. We had some snacks and drinks. Then we drove to see the oldest Joshua tree in the park. As night fell our guide broke out night vision so that we could see anmals in the dark. We did not see any animals. Then he broke out the black lights and we went scorpion hunting. We saw lots of small scorpions. The blck light makes the scorpions appear to glow. It was really neat. The night sky was so clear and there was no light pollution. The stars were breath-taking. We then rode back on the bumpy trail and had more snacks and drinks. All in all it was a lot of fun though it wouild have been nice to see some desert animals.

Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Well the trip was almost over so we loaded our stuff and checked out. We hit McDonalds on I-10 befroe we headed back to San Diego. We took I-10 to 215 to 15. Goodness gracious! What time do these people go to work in California? We were hoping to miss the traffic, but at 9:30 am, people are headed to LA and SD from over 50 miles out. The traffic wasn't too bad once we got onto 15 but it was heavier as we approached SD. We made it to SD and checked in to the Keating House Bed and Breakfast. There is no TV and the rooms are "historic". The location was great and the value was good for the location. Today was zoo day. The zoo was very lush with plants, and the animals were out in full force. Wednesday must be the best time to go because we didn't have to wait to see any of the animals. The Pandas were neat to see, but we really liked the playful cougars. The monkeys were a lot of fun, but watch out for the orangutans - exhibitionists ('nuff said). We decided to eat at the park although it was overpriced...it was convenient. We ate at the mexican restaurant near the pandas. Bring your walking shoes because there is hardly a flat surface to walk on in the whole park. It is all fun and games walking downhill, but some of the uphill sections are steep for a prego! There is a bus service and there is the sky tram.
After the zoo we were hungry for dinner. We went back to the Keating house and one of the owners suggested we do dinner at the Prado in Balboa Park. This was a great suggestion. The food there was fantastic. Jeremy had the Pork occo buco or something like that. It was the best dish he had the whole time in SD. I had the Chicken pasta something...it was also very good. We split a salad which was tasty too. We opted out of desert because we were going to go to Ghiardelli's in the gaslamp district. Again...where do people in California work? It was slamming busy in the gaslamp district on a Wednesday night. It did not look like it was going to slow down. We drove around for 20 minutes looking for parking and then waited for a minute to get into a $10 parking lot. We said forget this and pulled out and left the gaslamp district behind. It was a good choice. We went to Extraordinary Desserts and had an amazing carrot cake and coffee toffee ice cream. This is a high end dessert/coffee shop. The atmosphere was nice and the dessert was fantastic. After that we headed for the room and were too tired to think.

Thursday, September 20, 2007
Today was our last day in SD. We were looking forward to the breakfast side of this bed and breakfast. We have been to many of them and we knew we could expect something yummy. When we got downstairs we had blanched peach halves with blueberries. It was a tasty starter. Then they brought out a slice of fritatta. It was pretty tasty though Jeremy thought it a little bland. We were looking forward to what was next, but that was it. It was a tiny breakfast. Thank goodness they had optional toast and cereal. We had a few slices of toast and then we were off to return the car. It was a trusty car and came in handy for quick acceleration. Hertz has a cute little $2 charge that they do not tell you about if you want to get frequent flyer miles added. Also, you better fill that tank up because if you thought oil companies were gouging, Hertz was going to charge $7.15 a gallon! Well we fueled up just before drop off for $3.15. Then we hit the airport and enjoyed lunch at the California Pizza Kitchen. The flight went by quickly thanks to Ocean's 13. We were back home before we knew it and our California babymoon vacation was over. It was a wonderful time of rest and relaxation . . . definetly a time to reconnect before the arrival of our first child.