San Diego

The move from Fiji to San Diego was not good. We thought we were doing the smart thing switching to the cab. Sami turned up for the 1 hour trip to the airport on time, so far so good. We set out, on what sounded suspiciously like 3 out of 4 cylinders so that most vehicles passed us. It got worse - darkness fell and Sami slowed down and drove down the middle of the white centre line. He said it was because the plentiful roadside, grazing cows might jump out on us. Fair enough, I thought, he'll follow the next truck that overtakes us at 40mph and we'll be on our way. Not so, 40mph was too much. It got darker an Sami slowed down. Next we picked up a hitch-hiker and Sami said 4 eyes on the road were better than 2. It then dawned on me that Sami's eyes may not be too good and this was reinforced when he said he had diabetes and when the hitch-hiker got out we slowed down still more. Linda was now pretty anxious judging by her grip on the seat back and the clench of her jaw. I guess the Delhi cab wasn't so bad after all. Anyway, we finally made the airport in 2 hours again. It didn't end there, we arrived at LAX. The jumbo parked after endless taxiing where we disembarked onto the tarmac to get on to buses, I ask you 450 people on buses. We then drove all the way back to the terminal to join the lovely US customs & border security queues. This was small beer for us after the Fiji experience. NIce run down the freeway to arrive in SD without problem.

We are staying on the corner of Balboa Park, which is the site of a major exhibition in 1915 and retains many of the buildings now as museums and theatres. It is set in the hills on the edge of a valley running into SD. We drove out to Sunset Cliffs on Point Loma for sundown. You will see from the picture that we didn't get a good rental car - I am not keen on red.

Can you name the plane behind the Union Jack?

The zoo was great, LInda got to see all the wildlife we missed in Aus; wobblies; koalas; funnel spiders; but no kiwis, we studied the nocturnal exhibit, but no kiwis. I think they are really extinct, but the NZ government are keeping it a secret because it their national emblem. Who would want to be in power and be blamed for not keeping the national emblem from becoming extinct. Linda had an encounter with a polar bear - that is some beast. Also really enjoyed the huge aviaries and the gorillas.



SD is home to the US Pacific Surface fleet, so we spent a lot of time in the navy lark. We spent the day touring the harbour and visiting the various naval museums. The Forrestal aircraft carrier is now a museum. That carrier has some history - from 1945 until 1990. How they keep launching and landing aircraft at 45 second intervals is some deal.