Saturday, January 26, 2013

California Dreams

So remember when I was in San Diego? Yea me too. Good times. I know I'm not there anymore but I still want to share the awesomeness of it. The Engineer came to visit me on my time off one week, but he couldn't be there for the entire week, so I had a few days to myself. I chose some places to explore and planned to take the train/metro deal south one stop with the intent of visiting Torrey Pines State Reserve. They are supposed to have good hiking and the park is right on the ocean. Since I didn't have a car I had to plan around walking to everywhere. In my research I noticed that the University of California San Diego was pretty much on the path I needed to take to the park (there was no direct walking route, and what google maps struggles to show you is elevation...there was a very large hill between me and the park that had no roads on it). 

I was pretty excited about visiting UCSD, I never really realized that I enjoyed visiting college campuses, but I do. They are such unique places! So I set off from the train station in attempts to semi-blindly navigate my way on dirt trails over this hill. I was a bit weary at first, but saw other runner/hikers out there and felt more comfortable that I wasn't trespassing or something like that haha! And I made it onto the UCSD campus. I bee-lined for engineering (gotta pay me respects). It is quite different from UCF (Go Knights!), there were 8ish engineering buildings. Pretty serious over there, and they had really nice architecture and landscaping.


One of the engineering buildings also had what I would call Dorothy's house from Kansas on it. 


The display itself actually had nothing to do with engineering (which was disappointing because I felt at the least someone could have stuck some cantilever explanation in there, something, anything, Buler?), but was simply an art installment on the 7th floor that was not open the day I was there. Sad face. Also of note was the super awesome library.


I also learned that UCSD houses the official Dr. Suess collection! I thought the campus was cool and wished it was sunny so I could get the true feel of California college life. 

I had a good snack and set off toward Torrey Pines. It was a nice walk to get there and there were a lot of hikers of all levels in the park. It made me happy to see it being used so much. Sadly, it was a super dingy day - I never saw the sun because there was such a heavy fog layer - so pictures weren't the greatest, but I had a good time exploring the cliffs in the park.




This park would be a great place for trail running. The paths were wide and all dirt. You could also pick between different trails, some were fairly flat and some had pretty decent elevation changes. I opted out of running since my walking total for the day was probably around 10 miles at that point. By the time I got back to my apartment I had walked just over 18 miles! And yes, I do consider that my first half marathon ;-)


I really enjoyed exploring Cali, there really is a lot to do out there and I can't wait to go back on a real vacation and explore more!