San Diego again - Balboa Park, biking

Now I realize the fundamental mistake of Dave and Kathy traveling East to West -- we have to shift our time clocks later and later.  Each time we fly we have to get up later and stay up later. But for decades we have practiced being early birds, getting up at the crack of dawn. We rarely watch the late night comedy shows. Sometimes we don't even see the ball drop on New Year's Eve. We are just not playing to our strength here...

Did you read the recent article about morning coffee drinkers having lower mortality? Two cups better than one. And the benefit goes away if you drink the coffee outside morning. So here I am in San Diego making my hotel breakfast look as much like home as I can -- orange, oatmeal and two big cups of Joe. Awesome. I feel healthier already.

I did many miles of biking today, first riding over to Balboa Park, all the way north to the park boundary, then over to the east side of the park hoping to see pickleball at the tennis club (alas). Around the east side and back over to the museum area on the west. There is a deep valley through the middle of the park, which I had to climb out of twice. I was standing on the pedals and breathing as hard as I could for a while there. Steep!

Later in the day I took a tower tour at the museum. We got a lot of stories about the 1915 San Diego exposition, which was the genesis of these buildings and their layout within the park. (Also of the competition with San Francisco, which had an international exposition the same year, with govt funding due to the earthquake recovery efforts).

So the east side was where they had exotic animals, including ostriches and some carnivores. At the end there was a suggestion to just let the animals go (big ones eat the small ones, then starve, no problem...). Instead they started the zoo. 

Most of the buildings on the west side were intended to be temporary, like Chicago's White City in the Columbian Exposition of 1893. We got a rebuilt Museum of Science and Industry out of that. Here they have this 10-story tower, the conservatory, Spanish village, air and space museum and more. I got a smoothie at the Spanish village art gallery area. 

After a lot of riding through the park I left to get tacos. The blackened fish taco was worth the ride! 

Them back to the park for Tower tour, some time at the museum, finally time to return the bike. First I rode south to the Gaslamp district, checked out a street fair, got an ice cream cone. Then to the bike shop. 

The bike had been okay but not great yesterday. Probably twice as hard to pedal as my mountain bike. But around noon today it all went south. The tire had been squishy the whole time, but now the shifting got very sticky and skipped gears (or didn't shift at all), the chain fender rubbed, and a bearing starting clicking three or four times per crank rotation. You could hear me coming from far away. I was very happy to return the bike and walk back to the hotel. 

A nap, a bus ride North to the Hillcrest neighborhood for another Vietnamese dinner, and home for an early night. Here we are. 

And a few photos for the day

Using the tripod for the first time -- I need to improve my composition

There we go, fountain & Dave in the frame

Spanish village area of Balboa Park

Moreton Bay Fig tree, over 100 years old. Massive root system!

Conservatory is recently remodeled. The roof is all wooden slats, just replaced the original redwood. Unlike glass conservatories, this one has wooden slats and is open to outside airflow. Mister jets inside keep up the humidity and cool the air a bit. 

Inside the conservatory

And back outside. Nice gardens, lots of people wandering around, live music. 

Inside Museum of Us, an exhibit on the border and the harmful effects of exclusion. This map shows a tag for each person who has died along the border (in the US). White tags are identified people, orange unidentified. It's a lot, basically because of policy decisions to close the easy entry points and leave open the border into the Sonoran desert. Most die of hyperthermia. Argh.

Map of cities and trails of the indigenous O'odham people.

View from 8th Floor of the tower.

Check out the fancy tile roof. The rightmost ribbed support has stair steps on top and is used to climb to the top for cleaning and maintenance. I can imagine climbing up, but how do you get down??

Yup, I was up there. 

Mayan exhibit inside the museum, curated by a Mayan expert group to avoid colonialist viewpoints. 

Final exhibit of the day, PostSecret. The premise is that you write a secret on a postcard and mail it to PostSecret. They read it, store it and perhaps display it. Now your secret has been heard. Apparently it is quite freeing.  Millions of secrets have been mailed to them. Amazing.

Tomorrow on to Hawaii.