Started with a great breakfast around the corner from Pat’s downtown apartment, then we packed up and headed for San Diego. Like all of our drives on this trip so far, we encountered no traffic issues! Miraculous - our last trip was nothing BUT traffic issues!

Got to the Horton Grand Hotel right at check-in time, and we were given a very lovely 3rd floor room with a pretty solid view of a large treetop from the little adjoining balcony. It’s a very pleasant place to sit and read.

However, we were starving, so we scoured several blocks of the Gaslamp District around the hotel area to see what was available, and frankly, you couldn’t throw a stone in any direction without hitting an Irish Pub, Italian Restaurant or other fine dining establishment, and maybe a nightclub or two. We opted for fish and chips and a couple of Smithwick’s at the closest Irish Pub; the beer was great, but the fish was awful - dry, tough, and overcooked!

Later in the evening, we ate a great dinner at a Latin Fusion restaurant very close to the Hotel. The food was great -- there was a beautiful Russian girl hawking the restaurant right by the outdoor area where we were sitting. We chatted with her for a bit; I asked what part of Russia she was from, and when she replied, Terry asked if that was near Georgia. She got all huffy, saying Georgia is not a state, and then went on and on about something! I had told her I’d been to Moscow and St. Petersberg, and had loved them, and had then taken a train into Lithuania to visit my relatives, at which point she got all huffy again. “Lithuania is part of the EU, and we don’t need to be -- we don’t want to be! We're doing just fine!” (basically, we don’t need no stinking EU, thank you very much!). Such a proud little nationalist!

While enjoying our great food, from the pub across the street, we overheard some young men who were getting drunker by the minute, it seems, saying, “…and later, we’re all getting tatoos!” What a hoot! Like, "and in the morning, I'm making waffles!"

The Gaslamp area reminds me very much of 6th Street in Austin, only perhaps more full of young drunks.

View images from the hotel below or on this gallery page.