Oceanside, California: If you have been reading this blog for more than a week, you probably know I am a huge fan of Jimmy Buffett. Big fan. Kinda like him a lot. Though Jimmy has passed on to a white sandbar somewhere, he has left a voluminous empire of hotels, restaurants, bars, gift shops, etc., that will hopefully keep his family in flip flops into the future. Just in case, we I wanted to visit his nearby hotel in the Gaslamp District in San Diego to have a burger and a margarita - and my indulgent husband agreed.
Ya know that noisy Sprinter train that has been buzzing past our RV all week? Dave and I hopped on it late morning, and rode it to the Oceanside Transit Center, where we caught the Coaster train south to San Diego. What a little adventure for us.
There was a little Googling involved, but it seemed we only had to walk across the street from the RV park to catch the Sprinter train and it was only one stop to the Oceanside Transit Center from there. A security guard was at the train platform and quickly set us up with all-day/all-system passes (senior rate) for $7.50 each. What a great deal, and what great luck that we met that worker at the right place and the right time. After arriving to the transit center, we had to wait about 20 minutes for the Coaster train to San Diego.
The Coaster has two levels in their cars, so we went up-top and had such interesting vistas from our seats. The 30-minute ride went quickly and we took it all the way to the terminus at the Santa Fe railroad station in downtown San Diego... where we had just over a mile to walk to the Margaritaville Hotel in San Diego. The hotel hasn't been open for long and the space is very open and inviting. Beachy vibes and lots of cool people hanging out in the lobby on their laptops. The hotel has two restaurants - one is a roof top pool/bar situation.
We chose the indoor restaurant because it has garage-door-type walls that were open, so it was the best of both worlds. (The rooftop pool bar crowd may have been a bit too hip for people with senior citizen train tickets.) Like most Margaritaville restaurants, this one has a small replica of Jimmy's seaplane, The Hemisphere Dancer, hanging from the ceiling. This plane was infamously (and mistakenly) shot-at by Jamaican law enforcement thinking the plane was a drug-smuggling vessel... when instead Jimmy Buffett was flying Bono (and Bono's kids!) to Negril for lunch. Ever hear the song, Jamaica Mistaica?
By the way, back in the real world, the actual Hemisphere Dancer has just finished a total renovation and has been returned to her old home at Orlando City Walk.
We had a spin through the gift shop, but did not find a thing, so started walking again towards the marina area... but we did now know (because we didn't think of learn) that tomorrow is the first day of Comic-con - the massive comic book convention. Every hotel, restaurant, theater, event space, and the entire convention center are fully booked with people having anything to do with animation, comic cooks and all the sub-categories. We couldn't get out of the Gaslamp District quick enough... so we hopped on yet another form of transportation that was somehow covered by our daily pass - the San Diego trolley - which took us north to the Old Town station.
At this point, we hopped off to explore the Old Town San Diego State Historic Park - the original city of San Diego, started in 1769 when Spain built a mission and fort on this site. (Does anyone other than me feel the juxtaposition of building a mission and a fort together?) The buildings are largely intact, or have been restored, so it is possible for visitors to tour through the old town's plaza, pass through gift shops, and also see the original hotel and blacksmith shop, etc., in the settlement. The entire park does transport you back to the time when this part of America belonged to Mexico.
Then it was way past five o'clock somewhere, so we walked a few steps to catch the Coastal train back to Oceanside, disembarked, and caught the 10 minute ride on the Sprinter train back to our RV. We really had a fun day, and I had 12,000 steps on my pedometer - even with all the train riding!
Really didn't want much for dinner after our big lunch, so I used the leftover chicken taco ingredients from last night to make a quick quesadilla, which was topped with "salad" - another quesadilla/tostada thingy? - and called it an early night. DT has another cycling adventure planned for us tomorrow, and we will meet friends for dinner.
Until my next update, I remain, your "I am the woman to blame" correspondent.
Campground Information: Oceanside RV Resort