Day 22 - Coronado, a day of peace, Top Gun and Padres baseball

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Day 22 - San Diego poolside and Petco Park, Distance Travelled - 8 miles

Very short blog today as little to report that differs from yesterday for most of the day. We were up early (ish) after a rough night with bad sunburn! Yea yea, I should know better especially as we have imported the world supply of lotion with us into the US! So we had a full cooked breakfast of sausage, eggs and beans all fried on my chest which was radiating enough heat to melt the polar ice caps.

We spent most of the day by the pool again although this time I was wrapped in a 30 tog duvet , 20 metres of tin foil and sat under 18 parasols. It was all very quiet both around the pool and in the air as it appeared the navy & air force round here don't work Fridays. The Ryder Cup had kicked off and there was a fairly even split of Europeans and Americans watching the screens behind the pool bar.

In the middle of the afternoon it all got silly again, first the conference in the hotel finished and a few hundred delegates and their families suddenly descended into the lovely quiet pool area. Obviously after a week of hard conferencing they wanted to kick back, sink a few beers and cocktails and scream at each other across the pool for the rest of the afternoon shattering the peace and making watching the golf impossible, so I did the manly thing and headed back to the room leaving 'sleeping beauty' on her sunbed ( I didn't want to be around when they woke her up!).

As I reached the sanctuary of the room and caught the end of Tiger's bad day, the peace was shattered as half the American navy/ air force appeared to fly back in for the weekend from wherever they had been, starting with a formation of 4 jets that buzzed the beach first then flew a full circle out across the sea in order to land over our heads one by one....I was pretty sure that this would have been enough to awake beauty from her sleep and sure enough 5 mins later, 'happiness personified' was at the door, muttering like Mutley after he'd just lost another medal! A quick succession of fighters, huge transport planes and a few helicopters followed and then it was quiet again.

We had a quick shower and changed and headed out to the cab line for the short ride to Petco Park, home of the San Diego Padres baseball team. Shas had ordered the tickets online before we left and they were top seats on the first base line, just behind the home team dugout.

Petco Park is amazing, uk sports venues please take note! It is like a different world and even puts Wembley to shame let alone the drab concrete lined, wimpy catered, SHP! The concourse areas were clean and wide...toilets we're numerous, clean and modern. Food was unbelievable and there were loads of different locations selling anything from the standard burgers, hot dogs and pizza through to mexican, barbecue food, Chinese and Asian food bars and even a buffet area with a terrace view over the game. Bars were numerous and served more than 40 different types of beer. There was a separate wine bar if you wanted to choose one of up to 40 plus different wines and there were seperate spirits bars as well, yet no one (apart from maybe 2 college age idiots in front of us seemed to be drunk or out of order)

There was no segregation and we sat surrounded by fans from both teams. Again apart from the 2 idiots who shut up after a very friendly warning from the stewards the banter was good and there was no trouble at all. Throughout the game, the club and the team are involved with the fans, throwing gifts and souvenirs into the crowd, showing them on the big screen and really concentrating on keeping the kids engaged, even though the game was 3 and a quarter hours long. Sellers walk the aisles selling peanuts, lemonade, candy floss, hotdogs so you don't even have to leave your seats(apart from the loo). Plenty of people take very young kids and even babies...but it's a safe, entertaining, clean, baby and woman friendly environment....I think even Shas was impressed at her first game.

The game itself was sadly not as good as the surroundings and the Padres suffered a 3-1 loss with most of the action happening in 2 or 3 of the nine innings. It's the last week of the season and Padres are heading 'Crystal Palace like' for mid table obscurity and no chance of reaching the playoffs but still 32,000 fans turned up and they will play San Francisco again tomorrow and Sunday as well!

On the way back we got to see the very impressive San Diego by night, we probably would explore more but our days of exploring on this trip are over and we just want to crash out. On the way back, we also got to see the huge naval bases as we crossed the bridge back into Coronado and it became clear why there had been so much aerial activity with at least two aircraft carriers, auxiliary ships, hospital ships and other ships all docked in the huge berths. I'd never really appreciated how big San Diego was as a naval port.

So another good day and tomorrow we may leave the sanctity of the pool for a trip to see the dolphins and killer whales at sea world...watch this space.

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Comments

[Dave]

Brilliant!!!
Your twin?

[Jase and Shas US Adventure]

I can block you!