Last week I tripped off to San Diego for a conference. I went a couple days early so I’d have time to see the city, since I’d never been there before.

San Diego is a nice place to visit. I spent the first half of the week in the downtown area, and the last half on Coronado Island (that’s where the conference was held). Here’s an overview of my adventures.

Here’s the city, viewed from Coronado Island (which isn’t actually an island).

San Diego Skyline

Monday and Tuesday night I stayed at the Embassy Suites downtown. The lobby was nifty. It felt tropical with the foliage and goldfish ponds. And they served a sweet free breakfast there every morning. Biggest and best hotel breakfast I’ve ever had. This view is taken from the sixth floor, where my room was.

Embassy Suites lobby. See the goldfish?

Monday night I walked about six blocks to the famous Gaslamp District. It used to be pretty seedy, but about 15 years ago the city fixed it up, and now it’s a hub for dining and shopping. I had a sundae at the Ghirardelli Ice Cream Shop (where I also bought my husband a Mint Bliss chocolate bar). Then I headed over to Horton Plaza, an outdoor shopping plaza.

Horton Plaza

I bought a couple things from Gap Maternity on clearance. The Gap in Orem is always totally picked over for clearance maternity clothes. Not so in San Diego. There were tons of cute things on sale.

Tuesday I took a cab to the “World Famous San Diego Zoo,” where I spent about a half day.

Here’s Jabba the Hippo, who was hanging out on a rock underwater and, despite him not doing a whole heckuva lot, was pretty interesting to watch.

Jabba the Hippo

The highlight was the polar bears. You can watch them swim in their pool through a glass partition. One of the bears was super playful, and splashed around near the glass wall so I got an up-close look at him.

Checking out one of the kids

Trying to eat one of the kids?

The other polar bear just sat on a rock and lazily munched on his carrot.

‘Course, some aspects of the zoo weren’t so cute. Like this bucket I passed near an aviary, which holds a meal for some of the animals.

Do you see the dead baby mice?

After getting a nice and unintentional sunburn I left the zoo and walked through Balboa Park, which the zoo is part of. I liked walking through the Spanish Village, an area where local artisans work and sell their paintings, sculptures, jewelry, and so forth.

Spanish Village in Balboa Park

Finally I headed back to the hotel to relax. That night I walked across the street to Seaport Village, a little shopping and dining community along the bay.

Seaport Village with pedi-cab

I bought a CD of piano music by Giovanni (apparently a local artist) and a cookie from Cookies by the Bay. After traveling alone for a day I found myself way more talkative than usual, and made good friends with the clerk who sold me the CD, the man in the information booth, and a family whose boy had skinned his knee to whom I gave a couple Band-aids from my purse.

The weather in San Diego is gorgeous, but it was even better the three days I spent on Coronado Island, just because I was on the beach and the air smells salty and fresh and clean. I checked into the Marriott Coronado Island Resort (which BYU paid for, thanks very much) and enjoyed my posh room.

Posh room with the best, most fluffy bed and pillows around.

However, this sign on the inside of the closet door did worry me momentarily:

Wednesday afternoon I spent walking around Coronado near the famous Hotel Del Coronado.

Hotel Del Coronado

It was built in the 1880’s, I think. The beach was, of course, a highlight of my visit.

Coronado Beach, looking towards Point Loma

It was lovely to walk along it, feeling the sea breeze and enjoying the warm sun. I got a sandwich from the Hotel Del’s bakery and ice cream from the Moo Time Creamery. The sandwich was 9 dollars, and the ice cream–a “mini moo” with one mix-in and one topping–was 7 dollars! Thank goodness for per diem.

I lusted after some Birkenstocks at the Coronado Birkenstock shop, then sensibly returned to my hotel and lay by the pool with a book.

It was so nice because the lounge chairs were padded and comfy, and you could hear the waves hitting the bay shore behind the hotel. It was very close to paradise.

Thursday and Friday morning were consumed by the conference (the actual reason I was in San Diego), which was generally very good. Thursday night I walked down the boardwalk with my coworker and got the only picture of me from the whole trip.

That’s Coronado Bridge in the background. The black shirt is slimming, but it’s also maternity, as is the skirt, since none of my regular clothes fit properly anymore.

San Diego and Coronado were fun to visit. I got to do and see pretty much everything on my list for the five days I was there. I’ll go back again someday, but next time I’m taking my husband and kids, and we’re going to for sure hit Sea World.