San Diego

As Celia will not be home for 18months we decided to spend Christmas together again This time in San Diego.
We stayed for 13 days at the Manchester Grand Hyatt (coincidentally where Andrew et al were last year !)
the weather in Winter is famous for its av. Daily Temp of 20 degrees.
Dont believe it!!  It was more like Melbourne mild winter  13-16 most days with one day of 27.(so we did get the t-shirt out!
So just a small taste of our trip

We met at the Airport ( Celia saying she recognised my legs walking past on the upper level!)  San Diego is only 15minutes from the airport so we were quickly settled .

We discovered  the best things to do in town and promptly drew up a plan; Including finding a spot for lunch on Xmas Day.
We ended up at Bertrand at Mr A's with views of the city and bay  
We set up some lights and a cardboard Xmas tree I brought form home with our Xmas stocking to each other (a tradition) and the table piled with gifts (for me to bring home as well )

In my Christmas present T shirt
Note the red Fitbit. We did 10,000 steps every day 

In Balboa Park 

one side of the Spreckel's organ Pavilion in Balboa Park

On New Years day we met up with Marie-Liesse and Ludo Labat, a French couple who were members at PMYC.  They and their 3 boys are in USA for 2 years on a work thing for Ludo (they had come to Australia for Marie-Liesse to work at Walter and Eliza Hall.)

we went on a walk to Torrey Pines Nature Reserve 

The 3 boys. Arthur jumping for joy!
They speak French to there parents but english to each other 

We had a great time, spending time talking about our plans for the coming year, as well as our mutual weight loss admiration society (7 kg each so far)

the skinny sis!

Lots of murals around town 

along the Embacadero 

USS Midway Now in the  maritime museum area 

The Times square Kiss Statue 

Celia gave me a night Bites, Booze and Brothels tour of the GasLamp District  Didn't go into any brothels though 

The Grant Hotel

I gave Celia a 3 hour Jeep tour of Borrego State Desert Park with a local photographer, about 2 hours north inland of San Diego. So we hired a car and stayed the night and came back through the mountains via Julian, where there was snow!Thankfully not on the roads!! 

The Cholla cactus 

A walk through the slot Canyon of Badlands area 

Fabulous statues of the main road  

the Pillar cactus

We went over to Coronado Island on the Hop on Hop off Bus and decided against Xmas eve dinner  at $195 pp (maybe worth it, but after US Tax 2% and tip 4%, plus wine we felt we could fly to New York on what we saved! 

Mr Sandcastle at work 

The Hotel Del Coronado  

 We also did a day trip to La Jolla
  Started in driving rain that stopped by the time we arrived

colony of seals on the beach and some Yellow headed Pelicans