Embarcadero Stroll

I am writing this post-mortem about a week later, mourning a short but enjoyable vacation to San Diego. It was my first time in the city and we caught it in a bit of a heat wave, but the weather was still overall enjoyable compared to the gray that is starting to overtake Cleveland day by day.

My wife had a conference, and we made a four-day weekend out of it. We stayed in the Gaslamp Quarter, a few blocks away from the harbor and the so-called Embarcadero trail that sits alongside it. It was an obvious place to go run the morning she was presenting at her conference.

I was scheduled for a 3-mile run, but it felt like a possibly once-in-a-lifetime opportunity so I stretched it out as far as my little robotic running coach Claude suggested would be okay. A really enjoyable 4 miles, with a ton of scenery that, while I'm sure I would be desensitized to eventually, was breathtaking as a visitor.

I was amazed by the amount of foot traffic out running. Running around lunch time in downtown Cleveland, I might see two or three other runners on a busy day. I passed by a solid fifty runners in San Diego, all tan and West Coast-y. It does add to the motivation some, I think, seeing other runners pushing, some (much) faster and some slower. I even caught an impromptu high-five from a passing runner.

For the moment, I'm in love with San Diego and daydreaming about a life there. That's a constant for me after vacation; it is always easy to imagine yourself living somewhere when you've purposefully explored only the best of it in a short vacation.

We squeezed a bunch of San Diego into four days, but this specific Saturday was a memorable day for me. Started with this run, out the door of the hotel before my wife was up. Came back and helped her practice her presentation, then went out and grabbed her a delicious avocado toast and unfortunately lackluster matcha for breakfast. We then went our separate ways for a bit.

I walked down to the USS Midway, which I had seen while running down the path, and did the tour. Really incredible — my first time being on a big ship like that, and it was like the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum on an aircraft carrier. Afterwards, a quick walk found me at a Stone Brewing taproom where I enjoyed an IPA flight on their patio. Finally, I went to a Taco Stand location where I got a California Burrito that was out of this world.

We reconvened for the rest of the day, meeting up with some of her family who happen to live in the area and who showed us some great beach spots and took us to Old Town.

Definitely a day I'll be reminiscing on for a while.