I arrived in San Diego and it felt odd to not have to immediately pull out my passport. Every trip I have made, in many years has been international, in destination.

I headed towards the exit, but I had a thought while on the plane, maybe the hotel has a shuttle. So I asked at the info desk, “How do I get to the hotel shuttles?” He asked which hotel and I told him and he replied they had no shuttle.

Fine I will just Uber then. Holy crap, a mile and a half ride was going to be nearly $45. Forget that, I will just take the city bus.

It was not easy following the Google Maps directions, as there were so many different levels of “roadway”, but I managed to fine the bus stop and sat to wait.

Checking the directions again, I noticed it was 28 minute estimate for the next bus. It was only an 18 minute walk, so screw it, I’m walking. I had nothing but time anyway.

It wasn’t a hard walk. I found the hotel and check in was swift and easy. I dumped my stuff in the room and headed out to find food, as all I had so far was a tiny bag of chips on the plane.

I headed out with the intention of going to a Mexican restaurant I found in the map, 3/4 mile away. Unfortunately, I couldn’t go that way, as there is a fence surrounding the property. Trying to find my way around, I spot a Subway sandwich shop. It isn’t what I want, but I am hungry and I’m still in the hotel parking area still.

I am surprised, they actually have whole wheat bread, without oats and nuts on top. I can’t find that at home for several years now.

He makes my sandwich and then rings it up, $15.51!!! WTF, this same sandwich in Florida, or anywhere else, would only be $6+tax. But since it was already made, I couldn’t just say no.

I don’t know if it because it is close to the hotel or because everything in CA is high priced, but I went back up to my room to eat. Partly because I didn’t want to find out how much the drinks were.

After turning on the TV, which had a message welcoming me, by name, I flipped through a few channels, finding that the on-screen descriptions did not match any of the shows on any channel.

I decided to bring my Amazon Fire Stick, so I checked the back of the TV (which had a decent swivel base) and inserted it and switched the input to the second HDMI port.

It booted just fine, but when I went into the network settings to connect the WiFi, it had a problem. On my other devices, they would auto-load a webpage, then I would have to click a link to bring up another page to enter room number and last name (the password). Unfortunately, this device didn’t like doing that and froze on the network page, forcing me to cut the power just to get back to the home.

Oh, well, I guess I don’t need to watch TV anyway.

I do have a few episodes download on my iPad, and I can watch streaming on it as well, but so much easier to see it on the larger screen.

It is only 7pm, but it is ten back home. I am exhausted, so I just go to bed.

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I am woken at 4:45am by several texts. I had a problem with my RV a week ago, so I had dropped it at a service center.

The CSR had put the wrong info into the work order, so several days were wasted. I had gone in on Friday to clear it up and got the work order fixed.

As it was later in the day and their estimator would not be in until Monday, I expected a call then. After landing, on Tuesday, I had a text from them, but I needed to get to the hotel, and then forgot about them.

Even getting a text at 7:45am would be too damn early, as I am a night owl. Besides they don’t even open until 9am.

I tried going back to sleep, but I was already awake, so I got up and showered. I had to wait a bit for the breakfast to be open, 6:30.

I wandered around the first floor a bit just looking around and found a tourist info stand and got a free San Diego map.

As I walked through the dining area, I glanced at the menu. $18 for just eggs!!! All the prices were high. Never mind, I’m going out on the town anyway, I’ll get something somewhere else.

I took a seat in the “business center” and browsed the map. I decided on going to Balboa Park, which I had seen at home also, so I took an Uber there.

The ride was pleasant enough and was reasonably priced. Unfortunately, it wasn’t until I was getting out, I forgot to go to get food. And also, it was only 7am, nothing here would open until 10. I wandered about a little in the park, then walked to a nearby place to get a breakfast burrito. It was just a hole in the wall place, so I walked back to the park to find a bench to sit and eat.

I sat right in a puddle on the bench. Well, it will dry. The burrito was good, as chorizo is always good.

I wandered a bit more, finding a cactus with a tall flowering stalk. There were dozens of humming birds fluttering around, drinking its nectar.

There were also thousands of bees flying around, hitting every possible type of flower. None bothered me, so I didn’t bother them.

After so many trips to foreign countries, this was the most “alien” place I have been. Nothing felt “normal”, which I suppose is good, as what’s the point of traveling if everything is the same as home.

In Florida, most trees don’t have a lot of flowers, at least not for long. Here, every type of tree seems be blooming. There are pines and oaks, of course, but they are different species than Florida. There are so many different trees that I don’t even think I have seen before. I was looking at one tree and noticed a spiky plant in its branches, but as I look I realize, it isn’t in the tree, it was the tree. The base had long ago lost its spikes and appeared more like bark.

I spotted a baobab tree, with its tendrils hanging down, ready to become new trunks to support the tree. The sidewalk went under a huge magnolia tree, perhaps 75 feet across, with a trunk bigger than I could get my arms around even halfway. Our magnolias just go straight up, not out.

I see the twisted, gnarled trunks of perhaps mesquite bushes. There is a pine/fir tree that has a huge knotty base maybe 8 feet across, I would love to have that as it would have some fantastic grain pattern.

On the east coast, so many of our “ornamental” plants came from Europe and Asia, it is nice to see a variety of native plants.

Finally, it is 10 o’clock and the places are opening. I selected an art museum, as it was free. It wasn’t very large, but it had some nice stuff.

I walked past a replica of Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, but obviously, no plays at this time of day.

Then I went to the “Museum of Us”. It was a general history museum of humanity. They had some ancient relics but also some modern items. They had a room of secret confessions, people would confess something on a postcard and mail it in, anonymously. They were tame confessions, nothing criminal, like “I hate my mom’s boyfriend, I’ll never eat with him” or “I can’t tell grandma that I’m gay, because she’ll leave me out of her will.”  Stupid stuff like that, but interesting somehow.

There was a room that explored our desire and disgust of eating different animals. My personal theory is that we eat ugly animals (cows, pigs, fowl), but not attractive (rabbits, cats, guinea pigs) or extremely ugly animals (camels, worms, insects) unless we have no other choice.

It also included a cannibalism exhibit. Starting off, they show posters of many movies that had a cannibalistic theme or content, like Silence of the Lambs, Robinson Caruso, or Apocalypse Now, before moving on to tribal ceremonies involving human sacrifice and famous cases of forced cannibalism such as the Donner party and the Andean plane crash.

Afterwards, I wandered about town, looking for lunch. I went far, walking through neighborhoods, just seeing the different house styles. Almost went up the ramp to Interstate 5, but caught myself.

I walked quite far, going through “Little Italy”, but I didn’t want overpriced Italian food. I did ask someone as I passed, where to find good, inexpensive food in that area, but he didn’t know, as he was a newcomer.

After walking many miles and hours, without finding a restaurant that wasn’t outrageous, I decided to head back to the room, to rest. I called for an Uber, but after several minutes, it still hadn’t found me a driver. I walked up to the next corner, for shade, and saw a Chinese takeout place, and it was reasonably priced. I canceled my ride search.

As I wait for the previous person to order, I notice, there is no bathroom, so I get my rice with orange chicken to go, and call another Uber, this time it was only 1 minute away.

I asked the driver where he was from, he just said “west Africa.” So I guessed Somaliland, and was not only right, but impressed him as well. Most of the world sees the entire area as “Somalia”, but Somaliland is a self-governing area that is fighting for independence. Further more, they are a “safe” area, unlike Somalia, which has a very high murder rate and pirates that attack ships in the Gulf of Aden.

I watched an English man on YouTube who travels a lot. He made a trip to Somaliland and at one point there is a money-changer sitting on the edge of the street, surrounded by piles of different currencies, in cash. He had never been robbed. That is something that even someone in the US could not do.

I ate my food, then crashed for a couple of hours.

I checked, there were people in the pool, so I got on my swim trunks and went in for a while.

While in there, I realized that I haven’t swam in many years. Probably the last time was when Sherri had rented that house for the weekend, that had a pool. There is nowhere local that is worth going to anymore and the good springs are too far away, so I haven’t gone into the water for a while.

The water was warm enough, but the wind started picking up and was chilling my head too much, so I had to get out.

Walking count: at least 6 miles.