Exploring San Diego, California in ONE day! 🌴 (FOOD, Balboa Park, & Torrey Pines)

I'm so excited. We have finally made it to California. And our first stop here in California is San Diego. San Diego is located in the very southern tip of California right across the border from Mexico. It's known for its sunny weather, beaches, delicious food, museums, parks, and so much more. We have been to San Diego before and always love it here. And our goal today is to explore as much of the city and the surrounding area as we can. In our first order of business, we got to get some coffee. We came to a coffee shop that I've been wanting to try for so long called Communal Coffee. It's a coffee shop, flower shop, and gift shop all in one. It's basically my dream concept. It is so beautiful in here. They have so many amazing things for sale. And I love coffee shops that sell flowers or plants despite the fact that I cannot keep any of them alive. But they do have a really cool thing here called a latte flight. And you can try two of their floral lattes. We figured since we're at a coffee shop that sells flowers, we should do it. This one is lavender honey and this one is rose vanilla. Alright, this is the rose vanilla. Definitely smelling the rosiness. You can taste it too. Get a little vanilla taste in there. I think the smells really take it to the next level. They really like set the stage and then you can taste them once you get a good sip. It's pretty good. I actually like it. And that's saying something because normally Adam doesn't really like florally desserts. But it is Valentine's Day, so this felt extra fitting to just drink our flowers instead of buying flowers for ourselves. This one's the lavender honey. You get a little whiff of the lavender, but it doesn't seem like it's going to be overpowering. It has a nice lavender taste, a little bit of sweetness. You get the coffee. It's not masking the coffee flavor. It's just very, very nice and delicate, I would say. We just ventured a bit south to Balboa Park, which is a 1200 acre park that's home to 16 museums, a zoo, gardens, and so much more. And while we're not paying for any attractions, there's tons to see for free and it's just really nice to walk around. Our first stop in Balboa Park is the Spanish Village Art Center. It was originally built in 1935 for the Second California Pacific International Exposition and was meant to depict an old Spanish village. During World War II, it was used as a temporary barracks by the U.S. Army and today it now houses 37 art galleries and studios. One of our favorite things about this park is just the architecture of all the buildings. There are so many beautiful buildings here and they have such ornate details. So even though we're not going inside any buildings, it's still worth a trip just to see the architecture from the outside. We're at a really neat area of the park called Palm Canyon, which has 450 palms, 58 different species, all within its two acres. Being on the water, San Diego has a ton of maritime history and today is home to several Navy, U.S. Marine Corps, and Coast Guard bases. We're at the Embarcadero, which is a large waterfront area and is home to the USS Midway. The USS Midway was the longest serving aircraft carrier in the 20th century. It was commissioned eight days after the end of World War II and was the largest ship in the world until 1955. She operated for 47 years, including the Vietnam War and the Persian Gulf during Operation Desert Storm. She was decommissioned in 1992 and is now a museum. Unfortunately, we don't have time to go into the museum today as it takes a couple hours because as you can tell, there's multiple levels and you can go all through the thing. It looks really cool. It's one of the top things to do here in San Diego, but we're just going to walk around and just check it out from the sides. It looks just awesome to admire. I think we did a good job. For lunch, we came to Ocean Beach to a very famous spot called Hodad's, which, fun fact, is a surfing term that means a non-surfer that pretends to be one. This burger joint opened up in 1969, just a couple blocks from where it is now, and has been run by the Hardin family for three generations. These burgers have had a ton of publicity, including on diners, drive-ins, and dives, and have been on many best burger lists for not just San Diego, but the entire U.S. But besides the burgers, it's also known for its cool decor inside with tons of license plates, surfboards, and skateboards, but we decided to take ours to go and enjoy it at the beach. First off, carrying this big bag of food here to the beach, just one block, it felt like I was lugging a suitcase down here. It's so heavy, but oh my goodness, that's my burger. This thing is so heavy. Oh, wow. Oh my goodness. I'm so excited. Look how massive this thing is. How do I even attack this? I got the double bacon cheeseburger. There's two big patties in there. I don't know how big they are, but they got to be at least a quarter pound, and then you almost have a whole patty of bacon in there. They kind of lattice it or lay it over on top of each other and cook it that way. Oh, man, and then all this melted cheese in there. Tons of fresh-looking veggies. Oh my goodness. Looks so dang good. Nice toasted bun. I tried to go from top to bottom. I almost got all the way through. Missed the tomato there. Got some onion, but man, those patties, they have a nice little crisp on them. They have some kind of seasoning, I feel like. They are just cooked to perfection. Nice crispy bacon, melted cheese. That is just a 100% solid delicious burger. Don't worry, we have three more cartons of food, and this top one is my burger, and it's lettuce wrapped, so it's not as cool looking as Adam's, but I'm still very excited about it. Still pretty hefty. That is a super solid burger, and I think my favorite part is that bacon patty because unlike some bacon cheeseburgers where like you get a strip of bacon in one bite and then nothing in the other, you get bacon in like every single bite in this. This is delicious. So we got an order of fringes, so you get huge massive onion rings. Delish. And then you get a huge order of fries. All right, I'm trying the fur of the fringes, and these are like kind of a wedged potato. They look really crispy. They could have some seasoning on them. Dip it in some ranch. They are so crunchy on the outside. Oh, baby. But are they pillowy? They're pillowy on the inside. This is just so crispy on the outside. Nice, good, tender onion on the inside. Delicious. We have ventured about 20 minutes north of downtown San Diego to La Jolla, which is a beautiful area located right on the coast, and while you could spend an entire day just hanging out here, we're here for one very important mission. Eat gelato. We went to Boboi Natural Gelato, and we're having that problem where it's humid outside and it's melting really flat really fast, so we gotta go at this. But I got a Bacio, which is chocolate and hazelnut, and then I also got a charcoal vanilla. So smooth, so creamy. You can definitely taste all the chocolate in there. Hazelnut. So I got the Bacio as well, and then I got pistachio, and the pistachio is just how you want it. It's not that bright green color. It's like that natural color of pistachios, and also from when we were in Italy, we learned that the best gelato places have a lid on top because it helps control the temperature, and this place did that, so you know it's legit. I've been licking this as it's been melting all over me on the speed walk over here. Oh, it's so just nutty and creamy, and there's a little flecks of pistachio in there. Man, this totally takes me back to our time in Italy when we had like three gelatos a day. It's always super fun to come to the La Jolla Cove to see the seals and sea lions and hear all their fun little noises, and there are tons of birds here, and I googled it, and I think they're called a Brant Cormorant. I'm not really sure how you say it, but they have this beautiful blue color kind of underneath their beak or in their neck area. We're not bird experts, so we don't know the correct terms, but this cove is just gorgeous and kind of smells a bit, but it's worth it to see the wildlife. One place we've wanted to visit for a really long time in San Diego is Torrey Pines State Natural Reserve. This almost 2,000 acre reserve is located just north of San Diego and is home to the Torrey Pine, which is one of the rarest native pines in the United States. It has a beach, cliffs, and amazing coastal views. A couple important things to know about visiting Torrey Pines is that dogs are not allowed, and it costs between $15 to $20 to park depending on if you visit during the week or on a weekend, but we're hoping to get parking on the street that will make it totally free. All right, we got parking! We're hiking the Torrey Pines, Guy Fleming, Ebb Scripps, Overlook, Red Butte, and Razor Point loop, which is not a mouthful at all. This is a 3.7 mile loop that takes you to most of the scenic spots and overlooks in the reserve. So we were walking around here wondering which ones of these are the Torrey Pine, because they all kind of look different. Maybe there's a few scattered in between here with some other trees, you know. And so we came across a ranger, and we asked her, and she said, yeah, all these trees around here are Torrey Pines, but the reason they can look all kinds of different and have different kinds of configurations is because they are exposed to like different elements. You know, some are more windblown, some have get more salt from the sea, so that's the reason why they can all look a little different. We are just so happy to be here in California, especially here on the coast in San Diego. While we do enjoy the desert, our favorite scenery is definitely more green and lush, so just seeing all the green here, seeing the blue water has just been so refreshing. That's so cold. All right, we just made it down to the beach, which is what we'll be taking back all the way back to the van. One important thing to know is do not walk on this beach if you're close to high tide. Thankfully we have about three and a half hours until high tide, so we should be okay. The last time we were at the Pacific Ocean was July 2020, so it's really good to be back. There is obviously way more to do here in San Diego. It would be impossible to see the entire city in one day, so if you're looking for more ideas, check out our website. We have a guide on there that includes things that we did last time that we didn't have time for this time, plus some other ideas. However, our time here in San Diego is not over just yet. You may have noticed we didn't have any tacos today, and if you know us, that is just way out of character, so don't worry. Tomorrow we are going on a big Mexican food tour, and it is going to be muy delicioso. Oh yeah. Crazy. This is what's happening right now. She's licking my back. Someone's trying to sneak up on you. Get out of here. You get San Diego. German for Wales. Wales what?