Peppy's Dream Moving Adventure Blog

The first thing we did today was go to a local bike shop called BICYCLE WAREHOUSE (“It’s your world.  Ride it!”) on Santa Fe Street.

This place really is a warehouse – it’s huge and filled with everything a mountain biker or road rider could possibly want.  A young man named Kellen spoke to Eric for a while, telling him about his experiences with San Diego mountain biking and Eric bought two books: SAN DIEGO MOUNTAIN BIKE GUIDE by Daniel Greenstadt, and MOUNTAIN BIKING SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA’S BEST 100 TRAILS (second edition) edited by Delaine Fragnoli and Don Douglass.

Kellen showed Eric a bulletin board where people looking for someone to ride with can post their names and numbers, and where group rides are announced.  Kellen said group rides start out from the bike shop and end back there, so it’s really convenient.  Eric was happy to learn all of this.  I think it’s finally sinking in that he will have all the riding he needs right here, or very close by.

After we left the bike shop we drove a few miles to a restaurant called HOMETOWN BUFFET in Clairemont.  It was one of those all-you-can-eat places, but it is remarkably cheap compared to New York.  Lunch is $8.26 per person (including tax – no tips).  They only have breakfast on Saturday and Sunday.  Otherwise, it’s open seven days a week for lunch and dinner.  Dinner is just a dollar or so more than lunch.  If you’re a big eater, it’s definitely a bargain.  We noticed it was mostly seniors, and thought that maybe there was a senior residence close by.  Eric and I never heard of Hometown Buffet before, but now we’ve seen 2 or 3 commercials on TV, so I guess it’s a pretty popular place here.  I have since learned it’s a chain and there are locations all over the U.S.!

Me and the Sea Otter!

We were stuffed when we left and headed straight to SEAWORLD.  We were shocked to find out it was $57 per person, after already paying $15 to park the RV.  I don’t know how families can afford it.  We didn’t realize it was an amusement park with various rides, and also had many “attractions” and “shows.”

SHAMU: BELIEVE:

DOLPHIN DISCOVERY:

We saw THE SHAMU SHOW: BELIEVE and DOLPHIN DISCOVERY, each of which was about a half hour long.  We walked around a lot, visiting SHARK ENCOUNTER, ROCKY POINT PRESERVE, WILD ARCTIC, PENGUIN ENCOUNTER, FORBIDDEN REEF, and ANHEUSER-BUSCH HOSPITALITY CENTER (visiting with the Clydesdales in their stables).  We didn’t go on any of the rides.  One ride was closed, due to “wind conditions.”  The others got you wet, and we weren’t dressed for it.

SHARK ENCOUNTER:

PENGUINS!

Since we didn’t get there until almost 2:00pm, we missed some of the attractions.  There was some kind of show called PETS RULE with dogs, and we missed the CLYDESDALE show (but we did get to see them up close and personal in their stalls, even though we didn’t have carrots with us (darn!).  The Clydesdales are SO huge.  It's amazing.  I've always thought horses were big animals, but the Clydesdales are so big they make regular horses look like ponies!

The MANATEE exhibit was closed for the day, which was very disappointing, because I think they’re so cute.

The lonely polar bear:

My favorite part was the walrus in the underwater tank, because he was so funny and I really think he was trying to make everyone laugh, although I could be wrong.  He had pieces of fish in his mouth and he kept spitting them out, right up against the glass, and then sucking them all in again.  Eric said maybe that’s how he gets all the flavor out of the fish, but I doubt if that’s what they do in their natural habitat, since they don’t have many glass walls in the ocean!  Anyway, he was HUGE – I mean they’re literally the size of an elephant but with stumpy little legs.  Their tusks are at least a foot long and their “moustaches” are about 8 inches long.

The comic walrus:

The Clydesdales and the Anheuser-Busch Hospitality Center:

Eric’s favorite part was the stingray pool, where you could actually pet the stingrays.  They’re so sweet and come right up to you for some lovin’.  They’re so silky soft and smooth.  The dolphins also come right up to you, but stay just far enough away so you can’t pet them.  When you make eye contact with the dolphins, they just look so intelligent.  I wish I could swim with the dolphins.  I’m not much of a swimmer, but I’d just love to give a dolphin a hug!  I also wanted to hug the polar bear, because he really looked lonely and a little depressed.  Eric said they’re very solitary animals, so maybe it’s just their personality.

We stayed until they made us leave at 5:30pm and it took us about 6 minutes to get back to the campground.  No matter where we go (Hillcrest, Mission Hill, SeaWorld, San Diego Zoo, La Jolla, Pacific Beach) we always seem to be just 10-15 minutes from where we started!  We came back to the campground and I took a nap while Eric read through his bicycle books and studied his maps.   He woke me at 8:00pm and we got dressed and went out to dinner.

We drove around to what we thought was a new neighborhood.  There were lots of tattoo shops, a few bicycle shops, a lot of head shops (selling flavored tobaccos and bongs) and thrift shops and resale shops.  It was very young and very cool.  We parked and walked around, looking for a restaurant.  There are more sushi restaurants than any other kind in San Diego.  Just sushi restaurant after sushi restaurant.  We looked at one restaurant and realized it was HAIKU SUSHI, where we had ended up on Monday night!  We thought we had driven to a new neighborhood, but were back where we started on Monday night!

We decided to go back to HAIKU SUSHI, but would get hot dishes, instead of sushi.  We started with three appetizers: Soft shell crab (deep fried Japanese style), Shumai (steamed shrimp dumplings), and Deep fried stuffed jalapeno peppers.  Then, we shared an entrée of Seafood Yakisoba (a Japanese noodle dish).  Everything was so good.  We finished with Fried Green Tea Ice Cream (again).  It was so good last time, how could we resist?

After dinner, we walked around the neighborhood and ended up in a place called THE HIGH ROAD LIFESTYLE STORE (2,500 feet of the coolest Sh-t @ the beach).  The guy had a few piercings on his face and had little rhinestones glued on the outer sides of his eyes.  He was definitely a hippie, 2007 style.  He and Eric talked while I walked around the shop.  There were t-shirts, bicycles, wet suits, bongs (quality hand-blown glass), and lots of other items I couldn’t really identify.  It was a weird combination of merchandise, to say the least.  He was telling Eric how wonderful San Diego is.

He said he has lived in a lot of different cities (he’s originally from Omaha, Nebraska and spent some time in Scottsdale, Arizona), and he said San Diego has everything going for it.  He was very sweet and positive and said we should move to PACIFIC BEACH, because it’s such a great neighborhood with lots of college kids.  I pointed out to him that we were too old, but he insisted we would love it there and said there were lots of families on his block.  He said we should rent a house, instead of an apartment (which seemed like a great idea to Eric).  I promised him we’d look into it!

We arrived back at the campground just in time to watch Jerry Seinfeld on Jay Leno.  It was a great day in San Diego.  We are leaving tomorrow to head towards Las Vegas.  We will probably spend the night in Hesperia, California tomorrow night at DESERT WILLOW RV PARK.