The Best Places In San Diego!

Welcome to the third edition of comments visitors from around the world are making about San Diego.  This ought to make you feel good about living in a city where others only get to visit for a day or week.  If you missed the previous editions, start with Comments on San Diego #2.

Atlanta Journal Constitution - “It’s never easy taking that cab ride to the San Diego airport on Sunday night, the sun setting, the cool breeze blowing, the pretty ladies walking along the sidewalks, the outdoor cafes bustling, the sailboats on the harbor.

But duty calls, and we’re leaving the paradisical city with its tanned denizens, its rich assortment of tattooed locals, straw-fedora’d cruisers, wealthy tourists, hard-working immigrants, and bums — surf or street, they got ‘em all — and did we mention beauties? Of every nationality, they got those, you better believe it.”

Traveler from London - “San Diego must be one of America’s best-kept secrets, at least on this side of the Atlantic. Very few Europeans would put it at the top of their list of places to visit and yet is has a climate unrivalled by Florida and a location to surpass Los Angeles. It also has a diversity of culture and sights to match Washington, New York, San Francisco or any of the other “great” cities.”

Belfast, Ireland Telegraph - “In Southern California, where the desert meets the Pacific, you’ll find a city that combines opulence with stunning scenery.”

Salt Lake City Tribune - “Southern California’s gem of a city, San Diego, ranks as a wonderful year-round destination…”

The Independent (London) - “..San Diego, being the second city in the most powerful state in the world’s supreme nation isn’t so bad after all, especially when the city in first place just does not have the looks and location. You know who I’m talking about, LA. Give me San Diego anytime: an oasis of indulgence between the desert and the ocean.”

San Diego is the perfect place to ride out any type of storm.  Obviously, the weather here is near perfect.  But, did you know San Diego is also a great place to ride out an economic storm?

Tourism nationwide fell dramatically after 9/11 as people reacted by staying closer to family and avoiding planes. As a result, people throughout the Southwestern part of the United States turned to San Diego as their vacation hot spot.  We served as the getaway vacation capital for the 10 million residents of Los Angeles and the nearly 5 million residents in the Phoenix metro area. These two cities are the largest in the Western United States and San Diego is within easy driving distance of both.  That helped to prop up our tourism industry during the weak economy at that time.

Now that our nation’s economy is going through another rought spot, here is another sign that San Diego’s tourism business will get a boost.  The Cruise Log Blog at USA Today reports Royal Caribbean Cruises is moving their 2,501 passenger Randiance of the Seas ship from the Caribbean to San Diego to ride out the current economic storm.  The theory is a lot more people will be willing to drive to San Diego rather than fly to the Caribbean during the economic downturn.  An additional 24 trips will originate out of San Diego, bringing up to 60,000 more visitors through San Diego.

It is always nice to see a bright spot in every storm.  This is just another one of the benefits of living in San Diego. If you want to see the cruise ships up close, check out my post about the San Diego Cruise Ship Terminal I made earlier in the year.

October 2008 is a great month to take your kids under the age of 12 to the San Diego Zoo or Wild Animal Park. Save on the normal $16.50 admission fee and introduce your kids to our world famous animal parks. For this month only, kids can enter for free with an adult.

The San Diego Zoo includes a Children’s Zoo area where they can get face paintings, pet sheep, watch a kids show, and more easily see the animals.

One kids favorite are the meerkats, which can be found at both the Zoo and Wild Animal Park.  The Zoo has a number of tiger cubs that will interest kids but they can be hard to see at times.  There is also a baby in the Gorilla Exhibit. The Wild Animal Park has several playful lion cubs, who frequently entertain guests.

To help your kids learn more about the animals, the Zoo’s web site has a special section for kids. For more information, visit the web site for the San Diego Zoo and Wild Animal Park.

People travel from all over the world with their sights set on visiting the San Diego Zoo.  We are lucky to have it in our backyard and this free kids offer is a great reason to visit the Zoo or Wild Animal Park today.

One of my favorite Union Tribune columns is written by Diane Bell. If you like this blog about the unique aspects of San Diego, you will probably enjoy reading Diane Bell’s column, which is published every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday in the Local Section of the San Diego Union Tribune.

Bell provides inside scoops on the Who’s Who of San Diego, celebrity sightings, and interesting experiences encountered by local residents. You will read stories about odd coincidences, miscommunications that cause laughter, fellow citizen efforts that tug at the heart, and run-ins with Hollywood celebrities.

For example, in today’s column, Bell alerts us to two Spring Valley brothers (ages six and eight) who will be playing major roles this season on separate ABC prime time shows, including Desperate Housewives. She also gives us a heads up that Sarah Michelle Gellar and Kiefer Sutherland will be at the Ivy Hotel tomorrow night. A few months back, she gave us the scoop that former Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney was buying a home in La Jolla.

If you have any interesting tidbits, you can forward them to Diane Bell. Otherwise, enjoy reading her columns.

Congratulations to Nastia Liukin and Shawn Johnson for winning the Women’s Gymnastics All-Around Gold and Silver Medals!

If you missed it, you can watch the full NBC coverage online as it follows the USA, China, and Russia through the four floor rotations. Even though you know the outcome, watching it is still intense as you can feel the gymnasts’ emotions when the TV cameras follow their every move - Nastia Liukin frequently closing her eyes to gather her focus while Shawn Johnson is off to the side going through the motions of her next routine as she waits for her turn. Early on, your competitive juices kick in as it appears the Chinese gymnasts are given scores higher than their performances seem to have warranted while the U.S. gymnasts were receiving deductions for what appeared to be flawless execution.

As the Americans eke out their one-two victory on the final rotation, the floor exercise, NBC TV cameras caught the famous Olympic Coach to Mary Lou Retton and Nadia Comaneci react wildly to their inspiration-lifting performances. (See Bela Karolyi’s Olympic reaction to the U.S. Gold Medal Victory.)

Now, you can be inspired by Nastia Liukin and Shawn Johnson in person! They are coming to San Diego on Sunday, September 14th. They will be performing at the Sports Arena with other famous gymnasts to help raise awareness for cancers that affect women. The event is being set-up by Frosted Pink with a Twist and will be aired on ABC October 12th.

So, hurry and get your tickets. They are just now going on sale through Ticketmaster. Here are all the details to relive the excitement of the 2008 Olympics, right here in San Diego.

Ticketmaster web page for Frosted Pink with a Twist at the San Diego Sports Arena.

Ticketmaster Phone Number: 1-619-220-8497

San Diego Sports Arena information for this Gymnastics Event. The site includes an interactive seat viewer to help you find the right seat at the right price.

Ticket prices range from $33 - $83. Buyers are limited to 8 tickets on Ticketmaster. Group sales for 10 or more can contact the Sports Arena at 1-619-308-4311

By the way, if you are looking for gift ideas, consider getting a framed Olympic Gold Medal Photograph of Shawn Johnson or Nastia Liukin.

Have Fun!

The latest ‘Best of San Diego’ has been published in the August issue of San Diego Magazine. The annual ‘Best of San Diego’ issue always open my eyes to new places worth checking out.

For instance, did you know you can ride a mechanical bull in North Park? How about working out at a gym that overlooks Petco Park? For the astronomers, did you hear about the first annual starfest coming to Julian?

Learn more about where to go and what to do in the August Issue of San Diego Magazine. You can also take a look online.

When was the last time you went outside to look up at the night sky? If you haven’t looked up lately, is it because the last time you looked, there was not much to see?

Chances are you only saw a few of the major constellations, a planet or two, and the moon. That’s if you are lucky. Do you remember looking up in the night sky as a kid and seeing a lot more stars than you do today?

If you were a kid in 1970, there were only 200 million people in the U.S. and a lot less light shining up into the night sky. Today, there are 300 million people, a lot more night owls with their lights on, and Las Vegas Casinos. The light pollution is blocking out many of the distant stars we enjoyed in our younger years.

Fortunately, for those of us in San Diego, we can make a short drive over the mountains and into our desert to bring back the memories of yesteryear and share them with our kids.

If you think it is no big deal to be living in San Diego because someone in any other big city can just take the same short drive out to a rural area and see a panoply of stars, think again. Check out this Map of the Artificial Night Sky Brightness for the United States. This map was compiled from military satellite images and shows the striking brightness covering the night sky of nearly every square inch of the eastern United States. (It also makes you realize how desolately populated the western part of the United States is compared to the eastern part of the United States. Despite the large migration of population towards the West, I just looked at some U.S. Census data and found less than 1/3 of the population lives in the western half of the U.S., which includes the two most populous states, California and Texas.)

Friday’s Wall Street Journal covered this issue about the bright night sky from our own Palomar Mountain and Borrego Springs in their article, “It’s All About the Lighting“.

Despite the light intrusions from the Southern California metropolis and the Las Vegas casinos, our desert remains one of the best areas for enjoying the night sky. To keep it this way, the residents of Borrego Springs are going out of their way to preserve the night darkness by instituting night sky friendly policies. They hope to become only the second community in the country to earn recognition as a Dark Sky Community from the International Dark Sky Association.

Let’s send out our best wishes to the residents of Borrego Springs in their attempt to earn this special recognition. For those of us in the urban areas of San Diego, let’s also do our part by limiting the amount of light we have pointing towards the night sky so that we can help reduce the amount of light pollution that reaches out to the desert areas of our county. This is the one case where we can all contribute to proudly reduce the glow of San Diego.

If you want to keep up with what can be seen in the night sky, be sure to read each Thursday’s edition of the Union Tribune. Their Stargazer column in the Quest section will shine a light on what can be seen in the night skies over San Diego.

The LA Times brought attention this weekend to Pearson Fuels on El Cajon Boulevard. Pearson Fuels’ claim to fame comes from offering the nations first ethanol pump in 2003 along with a propane pump, two types of natural gas pumps, biodiesel, and six electric car charging bays. This one-of-a-kind alternative gas station is co-owned by Mike Lewis and Pearson Ford. Learn more about Pearson Fuels and Mike Lewis’s efforts to establish more alternative fuel stations across California from this weekend’s LA Times article.

If you own a vehicle that runs on alternative fuel, you can visit Pearson Fuels at 4067 El Cajon Blvd, just east of the I-15. Here are the directions to Pearson Fuels from Google Maps.

Are you still on the lookout for that elusive Green Flash at sunset? If you are like me and haven’t seen it yet, you might begin to wonder if the Green Flash is an old wives tale.

Well, it turns out there is such a thing as a Green Flash. If you check out today’s Union Tribune, you’ll even get to see a photo of the Green Flash! If you want to know when and where to look for the Green Flash, Robert Krier’s article quotes Scripps Climatologist Ralph Keeling, “You need a super-clear horizon with no clouds and no haze. The sun needs to stay yellow and keep its shape all the way to the setting point.”

Read more about the Green Flash and a few other great weather articles, including what makes for a great sunset, in today’s Quest section. If you want to stay up-to-date on what is affecting San Diego’s weather, check out Robert Krier’s Weather Watch Blog.

So, there you go. There is a Green Flash. Now I’ll know when and where to look. Share your experiences looking for the Green Flash in the comments below.

If you thought the old days of enjoyable air travel on new planes with great customer service are a thing of a past, think again.

Virgin America has arrived in San Diego with service to New York, Washington, D.C., San Francisco, and Seattle. I recently took a trip to San Francisco and was pleasantly surprised. They’ve found a way to bring back the charm of yesteryear while combining it with today’s technological advances.

For starters, don’t you typically prefer to sit in the airport terminal when your flight is delayed, rather than being stuck on an airplane? Well, my flight to San Francisco was delayed because of the Northern California wildfires. After a short wait in the terminal, we were boarded onto the plane and the pilot announced that he figured we would prefer to wait on the plane rather than in the terminal.

Surprisingly, he was right. When you first step aboard the plane, you notice this is not your typical modern day airline. Virgin America uses ‘mood lighting’ to set the tone. To get an idea of the pinkish / purplish mood lighting, check out Virgin America’s ‘Our Difference‘ slideshow. For those who want to read, don’t worry, there are individual seat lights like you would find on any other plane.

The seats were comfortable on the Airbus plane. Virgin America gives you an extra inch of legroom compared to United Airlines and nearly an extra inch in width compared to Southwest Airlines. Once I settled in, I spent the rest of my time enjoying the individualized entertainment system.

The entertainment system is a conversation starter as everyone helps one another find cool things to do. I started off watching CNN live on DirectTV while one seat mate watched VH1 Videos and the third searched through the listing of movies. Some of the movies are free while others required you pay with the swipe of your credit card directly through the seat back entertainment system.

Once I got tired of CNN, I developed a playlist of music that I enjoyed for the rest of my flight. There is a huge selection whether you want nightclub music or classical masterpieces and everything in between.

I’ve only mentioned a few things that I played around with on my flight, all of which were free of charge. The entertainment system offers much more but a number of the features have not yet gone live as of my flight.

The flight attendants delivered free refreshments while snacks could be ordered through the entertainment system. I overheard the flight attendants telling other passengers they love working for Virgin America. It was evident in the way they treated the passengers. It was also evident on the 4th of July when I picked up a guest at the airport and found the Virgin America ticket counter was the only one in Terminal Two decorated for our nation’s holiday. It wasn’t trivial either. They went out of their way to make it look like everyone else was missing out on the celebration. I wish I had my camera with me because the stark contract between the Virgin America and the other airline ticket counters was emblematic of the difference I experience between my flights on Virgin America and the other airlines.

Hopefully, Virgin America is the start of a new trend in airline travel. We are lucky to have them serving us in San Diego.

Oh, by the way, if you think I paid more to fly Virgin America, I’ll let you in on a secret … I tried out Virgin America because it offered the cheapest flight to San Francisco.