This Weekend: Where Do I Start? Part 1

I had a great weekend. In fact, it was such an awesome weekend, I am probably going to have to break it up into three different posts. That is because I did things I have wanted to do since I moved to San Diego. What really set me off was all the history and fun. But let's start with the plan.

I told my girlfriend that I wanted to take the train to Old Town, eat at this restaurant that I loved, walk through the Whaley House (the most haunted house in California and one of the most haunted in the country). Then we would take the train to the Gas Lamp in San Diego and eat and drink. We would then take the train back home. Josey (my girlfriend) wanted to go to San Ysidro to go to an outlet mall. I am not much of a shopper but I thought that would make up for Old Town (which I didn't think would be that big of a deal).

We woke up at eight in the morning. Josey wanted to clean the apartment (well, she says it needed to be cleaned but...). Since the train was departing at 11:08, I figured we had plenty of time. I mean, the apartment is 200 square feet, how long it take her to clean?

It's 10:30 AM and Josey is finally dressed and ready to go to the train station. She wanted to walk. But there was no way we were going to walk one and a half miles in 30 minutes to the train station. And I gave her an earful about how displeased I was at her lack of urgency. She said she would drive there. Understand something: I threw a fit. I was angry. She knew I had plans and she challenged those. And I was going to be so angry if we missed that train. So you could imagine the hell I got when we got to the train station and found out the train was going to be thirty minutes late. Ugh! I bought her a coffee (with four Splenda packets and five creamers). All was forgiven.

We bought day passes for the train (in San Diego, it's called the Coaster). It took us an hour to get to Old Town. Josey, who had never been on a train before, was suffering from motion sickness. It took everything I had not to laugh at her. But, when I saw her turn a luminescent green, I began to fear that her phobia of unsanitary bathrooms would result in her coffee and oat meal ending up on my lap. Luckily, before I could figure out a discreet way to get to a seat that was not in her stomach's line-of-site, we arrived at Old Town.

We got off and, now, it was time to find out where we were. Luckily, I knew that the restaurant I wanted to go to was across the street from the Whaley House (this will be another post), so I plugged it in to my GPS. As we were walking, we saw a lot of street shops and a state park. Josey was interested. I won't lie: I was happy. This meant we might have fun here. As we cut across the park to get to the main street, we saw a lot of shops and points of interest. I happily let her wander, loosely following her while we looked at all the street shops. Though I hate shopping for corporate stuff, street crap spurs my interest. We saw ponchos, leather goods, hacky sacks woven in Mexico, clothing and tons of stuff that you wouldn't find in a mall. It was fun.

Finally, we meandered on to the main road. First place we saw was an ancient church. It was a Catholic church. We were kind of Catholics. So we went inside. It was a beautiful, old place. Josey wouldn't move. I guess she feared walking around might condemn her to the eternal fires. She secretly filmed the beautiful old place. I walked around (I figure walking through a church wasn't the worse thing I've done), taking pictures. My family has history in California. I was looking for some clue about it. I felt it. I just wanted something to confirm those feelings. I would settle with the thoughts that a family member (a great grandfather with however many "x"'s before it) prayed in this same church. No, not settle; I knew it was true.

We found the Whaley House. And it was opened. I walked inside and the hostess told me I could buy tickets for a self guided tour. Awesome! I walked out and told Josey. She was going to have none of it. She saw the sign out front. And she is superstitious. Heck we just left a church. She did not want to go through this house. Being the considerate and understanding boyfriend I am, I bought two tickets and told her to stop being such a wimp. She was going whether like it or not. But I think lunch (and a couple of drinks) would screw her courage.

We had lunch at the Coyote Cafe. This is a Mexican bar and grill. I used to eat here during my last job. The food is fantastic, huge portions and reasonably priced. I ordered carnitas and Josey ordered a chimichanga. And, since we were not driving, we had some drinks. The order came out in ten minutes and was, indeed, a huge meal. We could barely finish.

After lunch, we took the tour of Whaley House. I am not going to go over that now. I will write a post about that since I think there is a lot to talk about. All you need to know is that I did not get pushed down the stairs by the unseen hands of a vindictive spirit nor did we see strange faces in the windows.

We spent the rest of the afternoon cruising through Old Town. We went through some of the museums and browsed the shops. A quick look at what we did can be seen in the video below.

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Our day concluded with a trip to the Gas Lamp in downtown San Diego. Now, you would think we would have no problem finding a nice bar. But we were in a special mood. We were tired and did not feel like a loud place. We found a place called The Cuban Cigar Factory about two blocks from the trolley. It was quiet with televisions playing the football games. And it was furnished with couches instead of tables. It was great. We had another drink and just talked.

At about seven in the evening, we were done. We took the train back home. Josey fell asleep. It was a very successful day.

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