Lake Hodges/ San Dieguito River Park

Mere inches from I-15 there is a surprisingly isolated hiking area. There are a couple trails in this area; we hiked the North shore trail. Though it's officially 14 miles long, a significant part is closed, and at present we think it's only 4 miles.

The trailhead is in a large recreation area with bathrooms and picnic tables. The first 5 minutes of the trail parallels a road, without much shoulder to walk on, but the pleasantness of the remaining walk makes it worthwhile.

After a five minute walk you come upon the most exciting feature of this hike, which is the bridge pictured here. It is a concrete suspension bridge open to pedestrians and bikers only. The view from the bridge is quite beautiful, though when we were there a stiff wind blew. Tie your hats and small children down tight!

The rest of the trail is a bit more pedestrian, but scenic in it's own stark, barren kind of way, with long vistas.The foliage is typical of San Diego, with lots of brush and not many trees. We were there right after a rain, which meant there were lots of pretty wildflowers. Your results will vary.

As soon as you get out of sight of the highway, the hike feels surprisingly isolated, with only the occasional house perched atop the hills. For the misanthropic among us, this is a great trail- we saw only a few people in the couple of hours we were hiking there.

Most of the trail was very flat, with the occasional steep spot. Don't take a wheelchair here, but pretty much any ambulator could do it.

Shade index: 1%.

Bathroom index: two actual bathrooms in the first half mile, nothing but scrub from thereon.

Trail info and map.

Lake Murray

San Diego is so dry (except for the beaches, I guess). The nice thing about Lake Murray is that it is just so wet. The 3.2 mile (one way) long paved path meanders around the lake, never getting further than about 10-50 feet from the water's edge, and is a pleasant respite from the parched almost desert hiking paths that cover most of San Diego. That said, it is interesting to see how little distance you need to go from the edge of the lake for the desert landscape to reappear (~25 feet).

The trail is one of the most popular we have ever seen in San Diego - except maybe for the beach on a nice weekend. If you want to escape humanity, go somewhere else! There's so much traffic (foot and bike both) that they have signs telling you to keep right, pass left. There are a few nice picnic tables and benches to stop and rest at, and a few nice views of the lake framed by the trees that dot the very edge of the lake (but unfortunately do not provide much shade). The trail also offers some interesting bird watching opportunities- Jymm recently got a camera with a10X zoom lens, so she welcomes any opportunity to take advantage of it and birds are the perfect subject.

The trail also has bathroom opportunities in the form of chemical toilets- stinky and dirty, but they get the job done in an emergency. Bring your own TP.

All in all, this wasn't one of our favorites. It was too crowded, not really scenic enough, and the walk was out-and-back rather than a loop, which makes the second half of the hike totally a deja-vu experience. Being near a large body of fresh-water is kind a of nice change of pace though.

Shade index: 10%

Official website.
Google map.

Addendum: We revisited this park one evening and found that it was much less busy. Not having to dodge people all the time made it a much more pleasant experience. The water is also pretty after dark, if you like sparkling lights.

Fry's Electronics

Strictly speaking, Fry's is not exclusive to San Diego but we decided to include it because it is a fun time. If you are into electronics in any way, shape, or form then a good time can be had wandering around this technological "mecha". We like to go and pay a visit to all of the cool gadgets we wish we owned, and while we're there we usually find one or two little things to temporarily assuage our techie cravings.

Fry's has something for all levels of geek. For the hard-core, they have a huge range of computer components, and even a pretty good selection of oscilloscopes. For those who's computer lust only runs skin deep they have a wall of LCD monitors and more DVDs than any person should own. And they also sell toaster ovens. Yes, they have quite a wide range of products at Fry's, and generally a very good selection, though there are notable exceptions (MP3 players and earbuds).

In short, Fry's can be a fun rainy afternoon activity, or a place to go when you need stuff! Bathroom index: excellent. Shade: 100%.

Sipz Vegetarian "Fuzion" Cafe

I love meat. Some people don't, and yet I have the desire to eat out with them. What to do? Sipz solves that problem with delicious vegetarian Asian fusion. While their faux chicken doesn't taste anything like chicken, I actually find it an enjoyable alternative. It also has the attractive feature of being affordably priced, with lunch priced at $8 and dinner at $9. For those of us living "on the cheap", a good restaurant can be hard to find in San Diego, and Sipz fits the bill quite nicely. 

Some dishes we would recommend:

• Jymm likes the Spicy Thai Fried Rice with "chicken". It's sweet and garlicky, although it wasn't necessarily all that spicy. (You can ask for whatever spicy level you want; 2 on scale of 10 is really very mild).
  
• Alan loves the Spicy basil bowl; it's ingredients speak for themselves: "Stir fried with snowpeaz, baby corn, baby bok choy, straw mushroomz, celery, and carrotz in a light basil sauce, with your choice of "chicken", tofu, or all vegetables. " The best part are the snowpeaz, which are really quite better than your standard snowpeas.
  
• Our friend (who shall not be named, because he is imaginary) likes the wok fried drunken noodles with "beef". Since neither of us have had this one, we consulted the menu to learn more: "big flat rice noodlez wok fried with carrotz, bean sproutz, celery, onion, bamboo shootz, and baby corn." He really liked the sauce. 
  

They have a huge menu; those three items are probably just 4% of the total options for entrees, and there are sides and deserts, etc. Of particular note is their wide range of Asian drinks (Sipz started out as a boba shop, though they don't have much boba now).

One of the reasons I like Sipz is that the food celebrates the glory that is vegetarian cooking, rather than trying to poorly imitate meat based dishes. That means lots of vegetables in each dish, and no dish has exactly same set of vegetables.  It's not at all like eating Tofurkey. For instance, their "chicken" doesn't really taste like chicken at all, but it does taste really good.

Location (google maps)

Sipz has opened a second location, called "Sipz Express", but we haven't tried it yet. It might be good too, but one has to worry a little that the freshness might suffer, since it's in a mall food court...

Hiking: Balboa Park

Before we begin here, we should say that this entry is by no means meant to be a comprehensive guide to all things Balboa Park. There are many things, both free and not free, to do there. We plan to cover some of those things in later posts, but today we're going to focus on hiking. There are lots of trails in balboa park.  On the map at left we've highlighted several. (click on it to see a larger view)

The dark green line shows Alan's favorite hike, which has a mixture of green grass, shady trees, and a bit of Urban hiking through the main museum area of the park. Total loop length: about 3-4 miles.  Like most of San Diego, the shade is not complete - perhaps 30% of the hike has shade. At the southern tip of the left-hand loop you will get the thrill of seeing planes fly overhead, almost close enough to touch, as they come in for a landing at nearby San Diego International Airport. It's a bit noisy, but also pretty cool.

The red line shows Jymm's "favorite" hike. It's down in the canyon, which grants lots of shade, and is mostly wooded, with eucalyptus and some evergreens. Actually, Jymm only likes the lower half of the hike - the upper 

half is way too noisy, due to the very close proximity of the 163.  It's about a mile long, one way. 

The yellow line shows a more urban hike, which runs along Upas street, hanging a right onto Park Blvd, and then heads into Florida Canyon. We took a little bit of this route today, and it's a little noisy for our tastes. Florida Canyon also has the disadvantage of being completely without shade and devoid of any but the most scrappy plants due to lack of irrigation. On the map we've only shown the ~1 mile urban part of the hike; follow the arrow to get into Florida canyon. A loop of another 2-3 miles awaits you if you decide to do the canyon part. 

None of these hikes feature "his" and "hers" bushes. But they do have occasional public restrooms, if perhaps the most scuzzy examples of such facilities you will ever see.

Today's Gorp:

banana chips

ginger chips

peanuts

honey roasted peanuts

almonds

pepitas

dried cherries

dried currants

raisins

dried blueberries

Hiking: Los Peñasquitos Canyon Preserve

This canyon trail runs parallel the 56.  You can park at either end (near I5, or black mountain road/I15), and hike up to 10 miles, round trip. A river runs down the center of the canyon, and there are trails on either side of the river, with crossings every mile or so. It's relatively flat, though there is some up and down as the trail meanders around the edge of the canyon.  The trail is well marked, with maps posted every couple of miles. [map] [website]

There isn't much shade on the trails, but there are enough spots of shade that you can easily find a shady place to rest between sun-drenched bits of walking. Since the canyon is quite wide and runs east/west, the canyon walls never provide much shade, either. We suggest getting there in the morning or evening, when the sun isn't quite so strong. 

At least on the weekend, this is a very popular trail. You'll find yourself sharing with horses, runners, and mountain bikers, along with the occasional mild-mannered hiker. 

We first hiked this in late Sept. We got an early, 7AM start from the lot on the I5 side of the park. It was one of those foggy days where you could only see about 100 feet. With that limited visibility, it felt like the trail was completely isolated from civilization/the urban sprawl that is San Diego, though later on when the fog burned off it was clear that houses dotted the edges of the canyon cliffs with some frequency.  Everything was very, very dry, and there was lots of dust. Surprisingly, however, given

 that it hasn't rained much in six months, there were lots of green plants along the trail, esp. when the trail took a turn toward the small river that runs through the park. After about 2.7 miles we came to the water fall, which is really just some water running downhill over small boulders. It did offer a nice place to rest, and there was even a bench. We kept going for another mile or so, and then we crossed the river and walked back on the other side. At our turnaround spot we found a little wooded glade next to the river. The river was clean and teeming with life- we even saw some crawfish! This kind of thing is so unusual in San Diego, it was quite a treat for our east coast sensibilities. 

In an amusing side note, the sole came off of Alan's left boot after only 10 minutes of hiking. Luckily, both hiking boots were in pretty bad shape, and the sole from the other boot was easily removed, keeping the shoes roughly equal in height.  He was afraid that the boots would fall apart completely at any moment, but they managed to last the rest of the hike OK.

Today's Gorp:

raisins

dried blueberries

dried cherries

dried currants

dried cranberries

honey roasted peanuts

roasted, unsalted almonds

roasted, salted pepitas