Thursday - August 10, 2017This would be my only full day in SD and it was mainly focused on Balboa Park. But before I headed to the park I did the tour of a different park,
Petco Park, home of the San Diego Padres. The tour was at 10:30am so I got to sleep in a little, and I got to the park around 10:15am. The tour begins at the Western Metal Supply Building, which is a historic building which Petco Park was built around. As with pretty much every stadium I’ve toured, Petco has it’s unique characteristics, like the Western Metal Supply Building and the Park at the Park, which is a park which is open to the public not during games and available to fans with tickets during games. Overall I enjoyed the tour and it lasted about 75 minutes.
Petco Park
Petco Park ‐ Flag of Baseballs
Petco Park ‐ Earthquake Proofing
Petco Park ‐ View from the Press Box
Petco Park ‐ Western Metal Supply Building
Petco Park ‐ Portrait of Tony Gwynn in Lexus Home Plate Club
Petco Park ‐ Visitors Clubhouse
After the Petco Park tour I ate my sandwich I had bought the day before at the JCC cafe, and headed to Balboa Park. I would be spending the rest of my day at Balboa Park but bouncing around from place to place, thankfully, parking is free throughout the park. I began at the
San Diego Air & Space Museum. The museum is set up in a circle by time period from “Early Flight” to the “Modern Age” with a section in the middle with some oversized aircrafts which wouldn’t fit in the other areas. They also have a 4D theater which has a few short (~5 minutes each) films which were cute, but nothing too exciting. I spent about 2 hours at the museum and enjoyed seeing the the evolution of both military and commercial flight.
San Diego Air & Space Museum ‐ SR‐71
San Diego Air & Space Museum ‐ Apollo 9 Capsule
San Diego Air & Space Museum ‐ Bell AH‐1E Cobra Helicopter
San Diego Air & Space Museum ‐ Boeing P‐26A Peashooter
San Diego Air & Space Museum ‐ Grumman F6F‐3 Hellcat
San Diego Air & Space Museum ‐ Blue Angels F/A 18A Hornet
Next up was the
San Diego Automotive Museum which is literally right next to the Air & Space Museum, so I didn’t have to move my car. The museum is relatively small but it has a lot of different cars. At the time there was an exhibit called Japanese Steel, all about Japanese cars. They had a large selection of classic cars and motorcycles which I enjoyed seeing. I spent about 45 minutes there and then moved on to the next museum.
San Diego Automotive Museum ‐ Signs
San Diego Automotive Museum ‐ 1975 Isuzu 117 Coupe
San Diego Automotive Museum ‐ 1969 Toyota 2000GT
San Diego Automotive Museum ‐ 1974 Lamborghini Countach 50005
San Diego Automotive Museum ‐ 1981 Delorean DMC‐12
San Diego Automotive Museum ‐ 1947 Indian Chief
San Diego Automotive Museum ‐ Indian 1942 Army Model 841
San Diego Automotive Museum ‐ 1981 Harley Davidson Heritage Edition FLH80
San Diego Automotive Museum ‐ 1962 Harley Davidson Model A "Peashooter"
San Diego Automotive Museum ‐ 1987 750 Ducati Paso
San Diego Automotive Museum ‐ 1950 Vincent Rapide Series "C"
The next museum was
San Diego Model Railroad Museum. I had to drive there from the Automotive museum, but it was right next to the science center which was up after the Model Railroad Museum, so that worked out well. They claim to be the the largest model railroad museum (I don’t remember if they claimed in the country or the world) but there’s on in NJ which also claims to be the largest in the world, so I don’t know who is right. It was a cute museum, which I appreciated since I used to build model trains with my dad as a kid. I spent about 45 minutes there and then took the short walk to the science museum.
San Diego Model Railroad Museum
San Diego Model Railroad Museum
San Diego Model Railroad Museum
San Diego Model Railroad Museum
San Diego Model Railroad Museum
San Diego Model Railroad Museum
San Diego Model Railroad Museum
San Diego Model Railroad Museum
After the model railroad museum I walked to the
Fleet Science Center to catch the 4p IMAX showing of
National Parks Adventure, which was an interesting look at the US National Parks from the viewpoint of climbers. The movie lasted about 45 minutes and then I was done. I didn’t plan on actually visiting the science center other than the IMAX, although walking through to the IMAX theater I saw an exhibit on classic arcade games which looked cool, but was overrun with kids, and I wasn’t about to go back fight with all those kids just to play the arcade games.
After the IMAX I drove to the
San Diego Zoo. While I had been to the San Diego Zoo Safari Park which is about 35 minutes north of the city, the actual zoo is much smaller (I think about 18 times smaller). I think there was a lot of overlap between the two, but the options that the Safari Park offers in terms of being able to go out into the habitats (the safari aspect) makes it special. The regular zoo also has panda bears and koalas which the Safari park doesn’t. If the aspect of going out into the habitats of the animals doesn’t particularly interest you, then the regular zoo should be good enough for you. Since there were many animals that I saw at the Safari Park which were also available at the regular zoo, I didn’t mind missing them at the regular zoo. I wanted to make sure I saw the animals which weren’t available at the Safari Park.
San Diego Zoo ‐ Southern Hairy‐Nosed Wombat
San Diego Zoo ‐ Andean Bear
San Diego Zoo ‐ Schach
San Diego Zoo ‐ Panda Bear ‐ Bai Yun ‐ Mama
San Diego Zoo ‐ Panda Bear ‐ Xiao Liwu ‐ Baby
San Diego Zoo ‐ Koala
San Diego Zoo ‐ Giraffe
San Diego Zoo ‐ Greater One‐Horned Rhinoceros
San Diego Zoo ‐ Zebra
San Diego Zoo ‐ Reed Kangaroo
San Diego Zoo ‐ Cheetah
San Diego Zoo ‐ Zebra
San Diego Zoo ‐ African Elephant
San Diego Zoo ‐ Southern Gerenuk
San Diego Zoo ‐ Cuvier's Gazelle
San Diego Zoo ‐ Polar Bear
San Diego Zoo ‐ Llama
San Diego Zoo ‐ Lion
The one day pass includes a ~35 minute bus tour around the park, which I found to be a waste of time. I would have been better off spending that time walking around seeing the animals closer up than from the bus path. The one day pass also includes a ride on the SkyFari which is an aerial tram which goes from one end of the park to the other. It was nice as a way of getting from one end to the other but I didn’t feel that it offered much in terms of views since most of the animal habitats had trees which blocked you from seeing the animals. If I had to do it over, I would have skipped the Safari Park and spent more time at the regular zoo. I spent about 3.5 hours there, and stayed until after dark (which made it harder to find my car).
After the zoo I rushed back to Moishe's Grill which on Thursday nights does pizza and fish and chips. I’m not normally a fish guy, but since it’s tradition for me to have pizza on Friday I chose to go with the fish and chips. I was a little disappointed with the amount of fish provided (two relatively small piece of tilapia, but other than the portion the fish itself wasn’t too bad. I grabbed it to go since I just wanted to get back to the hotel eat quickly and crash. Obviously when I wasn’t in a real rush to get anywhere is when I didn’t hit any traffic so I made it back to the hotel in about 15 minutes, ate my dinner and called it a night.