Mighty Wings

Now we come to Saturday, August 25th, another day that started out somewhat overcast in San Diego. Nick and Natalie had two of their parents over for lunch at around 11, which was right after I had had some breakfast. Funny story: Natalie's dad, when he met me, told me "so sorry for the clouds and cooler weather yesterday!" And my response, being from Texas, was "noooooooooooooo need to apologize". This confirms what should be a stereotype for San Diegans: You know you're from San Diego when you're apologizing for perfect weather haha!

After I had met the parents, I packed up the car, took a picture of the 3 of us (Nick and Natalie and me) sitting on their couch for posterity's sake, and headed out to see the USS Midway. The Hseihs were great hosts, they set me up with my own room and bed, so I could retreat there to upload photos and get quality rest both nights. I really appreciated their hospitality, and it was fun to get to know them and answer fun questions, mainly from Natalie, about the reasons behind the road trip and what I had planned for the days to come. I'll look forward to staying with them again if they're still around the next time I'm in San Diego.

One picture I forgot to post from day 5 is one of the few selfies from this trip; don't worry, this is not to make me look good or anything, it's just to hit upon the 'Matt grows a beard theme'. I was about 9 days scruffy by this point, I'm still very recognizable at this time:

Please disregard the smug look on my face.
Now back to the Good Part!

The picture above is my initial view of downtown as I'm driving south on Kettner Blvd., just off Interstate 5. Here's one as I'm about to turn left on Harbor Drive:

What I assume is a yacht and a steamboat-type vessel:

 

The other famous ship on the San Diego waterfront, the Star of India:

The Star of India is microscopic compared to the Midway of course.

San Diego's downtown, which is remarkably clean and well maintained compared to other large cities, has similarly clean and modern looking buildings making up its skyline, which I love to photograph. Here's a montage:

I sat in line and eventually pulled up to a paid spot in the pier parking lot beside the Midway, for these views for the Duckies to briefly enjoy:

There was a boat with an enormous sail cruising on by as I got out of my car:

First views of the USS Midway, an old World War 2 era hero of the seas:

Notice all the nations' flags streaming down from ours:

Tourists first enter the ship in the hanger bay, right below the flight deck. They had some of the older warplanes and exhibits giving interesting information about the Midway and its exploits, as well as some of its sister ships:

Now, for the flight deck, starting of course with Maverick and Goose up there in the cockpit of an F-14 Tomcat:

"I feel the need. The need, for speed, owww!"

Other warplanes on my first pass around the deck:

Desert-themed F-18 -

 A-4 Skyhawk -

A-5 Vigilante:

 Another A-4, possibly flown by Mike Metcalf, call sign Viper:

  F-4 Phantom, a beast of the early '60s:

If you can't tell, I used to be very into warplanes and such as a kid.

Reception for the wedding later that day:

Almost like a graceful swan's neck: 

Prop plane:

Friendly flight crew guy standing next to a bulbous nosed plane:

A loaded A-1 Skyraider:

Obviously not every plane was permanently stationed on USS Midway, judging by the Coral Sea sticker:

Another shot of the Phantom:

Warplanes and tourists:

This picture makes me think the tower has been buzzed just a few times by hotshot pilots:

Some of the choppers of the flight deck:

Surveillance aircraft:

F-8 Corsair:

The Corsair's air intake here looks like the open-wide mouth of a whale or large shark:

Downtown San Diego from the ship:

Two views of how expansive the flight deck really is:

The ship is 972 feet long, it takes a minute or two to walk bow to stern.

San Diego being a big naval port and base for the west coast, the Midway is not the only Navy ship in the harbor:

By the way, the bridge in the distance is Coronado Bridge. It spans from the mainland to Coronado Island, which is the site of Naval Supply Center. The cool thing about the bridge is that it curves nearly 90 degrees in the middle, so the left end is facing northwest and the right end faces northeast:

I wish Coronado Bridge was the location of the scene where Baxter gets punted by Jack Black in Anchorman, but that scene was filmed on a bridge in Long Beach...

 After the tour of the flight deck, I went into the ship, to some displays of the captain's quarters that had paints of warfare at sea, and to other rooms with radar equipment and cooking pieces. You get to meet the cook and some communications guys, all frozen in mannequin form:

Here is the Midway in San Francisco Bay:

Now this is pretty Top Gun:

Three other paintings of Phantoms, World War 2 era planes, and the Midway in front of either the sunset or a nuclear explosion:

Captain Ernst, with the Duckies making a cameo:

I then walked back to the back of the hangar, to the gift shop with these ship models:

At around 2, I had a sandwich at the open-air café at the stern (back) of the ship. I think I was forced into Cherry Pepsi instead of Cherry Coke, the only real travesty of this day.

It was getting later in the afternoon post lunch, and I really wanted to reach Orange County by sunset, but I did stand a few minutes behind the ropes to watch the wedding taking place on one of the flight elevators that used to carry planes from the hanger to the flight deck. The ceremony was dragging on so I didn't see the pronouncement and kiss, but close enough:

Once I got back to the car, I had one last errand to run in downtown, which was a recommendation from Nick and Natalie. Like I said earlier, downtown SD is pretty clean and up to date architecturally:

That combination of palm and pine trees is pretty fun, pretty California. Near those brownstones in the above picture is a wonderful dessert place compellingly called Extraordinary Desserts. Me being me, I got a $5.50 latte for the drive up to LA. Extraordinary really was just that, the interior and staff were what I would call "swanky".

From there, it was time to take Interstate 5 north to the Torrey Pines State Park, which runs right along the beach. I took the Genessee Rd. exit, which runs through some research and tech offices before becoming Torrey Pines Rd. I had to make a couple of passes along this narrow spit of land to find a parking spot, but I got out, shoes off, to take some pictures right by the water:

 The houses on those hills probably don't cost as much as the palaces in La Jolla, but they can't be too cheap considering overlooking the beach.

 This state park was free to drive into, by the way.

 Looking south toward La Jolla, with a guy waving his arms to indicate he's having fun while being off balance on the right:

 The Duckies got near, but not in, the Pacific. Was it because I thought I might lose them and have Erin call in a missile strike on me? Yes. Yes it was.

Notice it was overcast again by this late afternoon, and the water was on the cool side, 60 degrees according to my feet and ankles:

 Next stop: Oceanside, up the coast between SD and LA. I thought since I was driving through, that I'd check out a Top Gun filming location, the house where Charlie, Maverick's squeeze, lived. The address was 102 Oceanside Dr., not 1 mile from I-5. Easy location to quickly check out.

The house wasn't there though, which was somewhat disappointing. There was no building on the 102 lot, so I settled for a picture of a similar house at 108 Oceanside, and a view down the pier:

 My business in Oceanside complete, I got back on I-5 north, where the next unexpected thing happened. Another few glimpses of the ocean from the highway and full view of the swooping highway through the southern California hills in the meantime:

I had targeted Fashion Island Mall in Newport Beach on my phone's map app, and it wanted me to take tollways to get there. This first happened around San Clemente. I disagreed with the phone's route since I had no tolltag nor pass, and didn't want to pay up to drive that way ironically. I therefore eyeballed Hwy 73 on the map that cut slightly closer to the coast, and ended up heading south on a smaller Hwy 133 into the city of Laguna Beach:

 There was a wee bit o' traffic in between those Laguna hills:

 I did see some houses perched up on the hills above as I was waiting:

At long last, here it is folks, my entrance onto Highway 1, the Pacific Coast Highway, the PCH, whatever you want to call it; there's also a premium to pay for the gas to drive there:

 This being Laguna Beach, this is the stomping grounds of Elizabeth Vanderveen's family:

It was close to sunset by this point, and I was a few towns south of Newport, but it was hard not to enjoy the initial views on the PCH:

 Notice the state car of California, the Prius:

Not that I'm biased, but I bet it was struggling to get up that slight incline ;)

I got to Fashion Island right after sunset, and it was about as nice as I'd expected. For irony's sake, I had Chick-fil-A there, and the staff was baffled by the term "value-sized". There were nice cars outside of course, and there was a Tesla showroom as well. I wasn't into Tesla that much back then, so naturally there's no photographic evidence of that showroom, just of "normal" cars:

The sunset cast a rosy hue over the palms and buildings surrounding the mall:

 It was getting late by the time I'd finished dinner, so I started taking several highways from Newport Beach into the inland part of Orange County, and arrived at night at the hotel in Norwalk that I'd booked earlier that day. The weather was still around 60s and dry, which made for a nice evening in which to unload my trunk's worth of luggage into the hotel room. After I'd uploaded these pictures, I took 2 hours to watch Easy A with Emma Stone, filmed in a small town north of LA that I was hoping to visit the next day. That made for a late bedtime, after a very rewarding day.