San Diego in May

Mission Bay Camping

An opportunity presented itself with a medical issue I could only deal with in So. Cal, to spend some time in San Diego for 6 weeks ... The trip turned out to be a pretty nice vacation, with many experiences to remember. So, I'll give an overview of the sights, sounds, food, weather, and skip comments about the overcrowded highways, an experience all by itself!

First, the park: Mission Bay RV Resort. We were able to secure a long-term stay at this park which turned out to be about 20 minutes or less from everything including, Balboa Park with 18 museums, SD Zoo, SeaWorld, the USS Midway Museum, old town San Diego, many good restaurants, and an easy walk to the beach.

The site was wide enough and deep enough to park with all 3 slides out. We parked in what is called the "north campground", where the sites are diagonal, with fences in between, so privacy is good and quiet. The downside was sites are on "dirt" with hook-ups generally as far away from the RV wet bay as possible ... I'm not sure who did the design, but I don't think they RV.

Never before: To park here, we had to attend a 1-hour "orientation" seminar given by security personal, sign a mound of paperwork indemnifying the city, the county, the state, and possibly the world from things that might happen during the stay. Sewer connection had to be air-tight, and was "inspected" before final "approval" could be had. Incredible!

So, weeks 1 and 2 were spent getting through medical preliminaries (the real reason for the visit), deciding and planning things to do, stocking up groceries for the stay, and dealing with my Jeep, which decided to blow two cylinders requiring a new engine. Yes, a new engine, but I'll leave all that out of this post ... boring!

Torrey Pines Glider Port

No trip to San Diego should be done without a visit to the world-famous Torrey Pines Glider port, about 20 minutes north of Mission Bay. This place offers incredible 180-degree views of the coast as well as an opportunity to watch people throw themselves off the cliff. Well, okay, they were using hang-gliders. You can get a ride if you have the guts to do so.

About 100 yards north of the Glider Port with its excellent food and oven-fired pizzas, is the RC Glider launching area; you can see it in the picture above in the background. Louise and I made a few treks to the site as I wanted to fly my RC glider and, with the mandatory assistance of a local RC glider club member, did so.

So, there I was, standing on the bluff, ready to throw my ship off the cliff and hoping everything was working as it should ... and it did! After a 20 minute flight of adrenaline-pumping excitement, I made a perfect landing on the grassy bluff behind me, much to the pleasure of my sponsor. Yahoo!

The following weekend just happened to be the annual Katie Martin RC fly-in honoring Bob Martin's wife Katie and the RC glider he designed in her memory. This was an incredible event during which I flew again, but using two of the large and very expensive ($2,000 and up) RC ships that were in attendance. Since I had been previously checked out the week prior, my AMA pilot's license in possession, and the $1m of required insurance ... I had a blast and made many new friends.

The couple above who came from Santa Rosa for the event, let me fly this beautiful plane for as long as I wanted ... which is about 20 minutes as the adrenaline-pumping experience is about all I can do! Ha! A few more pictures follow:

And the final pix of Torrey Pines Katie Martin fly-in below. You can find me in the front row, to the right, kneeling, wearing a green shirt and cap.

Anyway, this was a very cool event and one not to be missed if you are ever in San Diego on the first day of June. Okay, next blog is of our trip to the USS Midway aircraft carrier museum, so stay tuned ...