I have spent most of my life disliking cities.  I think San Diego might be one of the exceptions.  I have thoroughly enjoyed the past week here and I’m already planning future visits to the area.  We have found that despite it being a large city it is pretty easy to navigate.  We have spent the last 2 days checking out different areas of the city.

Our first stop was at Balboa Park.  What a gem this is for the city of San Diego.  We spent the morning walking the park with Gizmo and getting information about what we might want to do on another day.  This is a great place to walk with your dog.  The buildings are beautiful and there are plenty of spaces to get a break from the sun.

 Balboa park has many museums and is the location of the San Diego Zoo.  There are some great deals on museum entrance fees if you are here for an extended period of time.  John and I are planning on getting a week long pass so we can explore several of the museums.  If you plan on taking in the San Diego Zoo you can package it with a museum explorer pass.

Our second stop was Navy Pier.  We wanted to get information about touring the USS Midway on a day we sneak out without Gizmo.  We enjoyed walking around this area as there is a lot to see.  I was personally excited to see the “Unconditional Surrender” statue.  It was much larger than I expected.  There is a great memorial to Bob Hope just around the corner.  We walked to the end of Broadway Pier.  At the end of the pier there are great views across to the USS Midway and the harbor.  There are multiple tables and seats with shade so you can take a break and just enjoy the sights.  There was a nice sea breeze on the day we visited and the temperature was significantly cooler at the end of the pier.

Day two of exploration we started with a visit to Coronado Island.  We wanted to take Gizmo to the dog friendly beach.  In my opinion it is the best looking dog beach we have been to yet.  Gizmo enjoyed walking the beach with us and playing with another small dog.  I think Gizmo preferred the original “Dog Beach”, but I preferred this one.  The views across to Point Loma and back towards Hotel del Coronado are amazing.  Our next stop was to walk the sidewalks near Hotel del Coronado.  What a beautiful resort this is.  We had hoped to take in a bike ride on the Bay Shore Bike Path along Silver Strand Beach.  Once we headed south on 75 there was limited access to get to the other side and access the path.  We did a quick change in plans and continued on to Imperial Beach.  We stopped for some photos along the way

Entrance at Imperial Beach Pier

and at the pier.

Dogs can walk on the paved area of the park near the pier but cannot go on the pier or beach

We continued south and took in the sights of the estuary along the Tijuana river.  The most southern portion of imperial beach is dog friendly but dogs must remain on a leash.  This is another great walking beach.  The waves were huge when we visited.  We still had some time left so we decided to drive down to Border Field State Park.  We knew the gate would be closed during the week but knew that pedestrian and bicycle traffic is allowed past the gate.  We were hoping that we would be able to take Gizmo in the bike basket but dogs are not allowed here.  The sign said that it was only 1 mile to the beach and another 1/2 mile up to Mesa Monument.  I decided to stay back with Gizmo and let John take a quick trip with the bike to check out the area.  The trip was not as quick as we had thought it would be.  John ran into a large area of water on the road about 1/2 mile in.  He tried to detour around the road, where he saw others, and ended up in deep mud.

When he returned, he and the bike were covered with mud

He returned to the main road and then took another gravel road to the beach.  The location was still about 1/2 mile from the wall but he could see the wall and into Tijuana.  He abandoned his attempt to get up to Monument Mesa because of the mud.