Midway Twix the Zoo and the World

We looked up the prices to go to Sea World and gasped.  Uh, no.  Then we looked up the prices for the San Diego Zoo.  What?!?  Uh, no.

So the cheapskates decided to do some visiting around the San Diego area. 

First we located the house Mike lived in 45 years ago.  We found his school and where he played ball.  We showed Jenni the infamous "hill" that Mike's sister Susan always talks about.  ("Hill" is in quotes because it is not much of a hill.)

Afterwards we drove downtown and found the El Cortez Hotel.  The San Diego Comic Con used to be held at the El Cortez and Mike has many fond memories.  His last two visits there included a certain redhead.  Sometime after the Comic Con moved to the new convention center on the water, the El Cortez razed their convention center, which was an add-on, anyway to the original old hotel.  The hotel was refurbished and really looks nice. 

We parked downtown and stopped at Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf (believe me, we'll be doing a lot more of that) and then Jenni showed us where she stayed when she came down for a convention for her job.

We found our way to the waterfront where I spied a what looked like a fun place to eat.

Instead we ate here:

That's the fantail of the USS Midway.  It's an aircraft carrier that was decommissioned in 1992.  This aircraft carrier ran very successful missions in Viet Nam and Operation Desert Storm, amongst others.  We decided to take the tour and it took over four hours.  I highly recommend this tour, HOWEVER, don't do it if it's a hot day, if you have issues with claustrophobia, or it you don't like climbing near vertical stairways.  It was designed for dinky winky sailors, after all.  This really was an incredible experience and I'm very glad we did it.  My feet aren't glad, but my brain is glad.

After abandoning the Midway, we walked back to the car (which was about 2 miles away).  I really wanted to see the San Diego Mission, so we drove over.  The mission isn't anywhere near downtown but it was a pretty drive.  We found the mission, I saw it, then we drove away.  No way would my feet let me do that!  They need to get me through Disneyland tomorrow!

We found a large--really large--mall nearby and stopped for dinner.  Now we're back at the hotel and veggin' out.  Jenni's packing for our trip tomorrow.  Tomorrow will be Mike's last full day with us.