We woke up around 7:30 after almost 10 hours of sleep. Woot!
We made coffee/tea in the kitchen, had cereal/milk, then
headed out for a walk. We started heading on Bacon away from the downtown area
where we bought groceries, toward Sunset Cliffs. We zig-zagged along seawalled
streets until we ended up on Sunset Cliffs Blvd at Point Loma where the Sunset
Cliffs trail starts. It was windy and sunny, around 65 degrees.
It was lots of rugged coastline and crashing waves. The
houses along Sunset Cliffs are mansions. All with different types of
architecture and clearly well-designed. Not to mention expensive.
We walked to Sunset Cliffs Park where we found (and used)
porta-potties then turned back. When we got back to Point Loma, we had lunch at
Little Lion. It’s a very small place, maybe 8-10 tables, inside and out. We sat
outside. Al had a BLTA on ciabatta; I had a Californian on ciabatta. Both were
really good. Al’s had thick cut bacon and avocado. Mine was a multilayered work
of art with strata of avocado, organic greens, spinach, alfalfa sprouts, white
beans, aioli, some sort of cheese, and roasted red pepper. It was way tasty. Their
offerings were heavy on organic, vegetarian, and high quality/homemade
ingredients.
Little Lion restaurant
Californian Sandwich
After lunch, we walked a half block back toward the ocean to
a mini trailer converted to a street side coffee shop. They served coffee,
tea, smoothies, hot dogs and granola bowls. I got a ‘Wave of the Day’…a latte
with espresso, caramel, steamed almond milk and vanilla flavor shot. It hit the
spot!
Surf Check coffee trailer
The guy running the place was very chatty…asking where we
were from (Iowa) and if that was where Boise is (no, that’s Idaho) and if Iowa
is one of the ‘square states’ (mostly…although he might not have been talking
about geography). A woman and her 2 boys were having lunch and overheard the
conversation. She was from Iowa, been in San Diego for several years.
They recommended eating at Mitch’s (as did cousin Keenan),
Balboa Park (as did the woman on our Uber ride, Nico’s (best breakfast
burritos) and OB farmers market (we were already planning to go). We thanked
them and headed back to the room. We’d walked just over a 5 miles by the time
we got there.
We took a power nap before heading out again.
We went to the dead end, down the stairs and along the sea
wall to the pier. Yesterday, we’d only gone as far as the café. This time we
walked all the way to the ends of both branches. On the way back, there were
men working at the pumping station that’s between the restrooms/café and short.
We asked what it was pumping…drinking water out or dirty water back. It was
waste water back to shore for treatment with the other Ocean Beach waste water.
Stairway between the sea wall and the end of Narragansett St.
Waste water pumping station midway along the pier
There were people looking in the tide pools near the end of the
pier when we got back so we decided to poke around in them too. We found lots
of sea slugs (some as long as my forearm), some shell-crusted anemones, and one
small crab (dead). We got caught by an incoming wave and soaked our
socks/shoes.
Tide pools next to the Pier
We walked back to the room for dry socks then headed out to
the farmers market. We arrived just at opening, 4:00. We stopped at fruit
vendors and got passion fruit, blood oranges, navel oranges, a cherimoya, a
sweet lime (which, despite its name is lemon-yellow…it is sweet, though), and
kumquats. Food items at all the stalls could be sampled. We tasted cheese,
pasta, a greens smoothie, pistachios, almonds, and crème brulee in addition to
all the fruits we bought. We also bought a mini pecan pie that was to die for.
We ate it standing on the sidewalk by the pie seller.
Awesome mini pecan pie from the Farmers Market
We did a loop of the market…basically up one side of the
block and down the other. That loop took an hour. We ended up right in front of
the liquor store so we got another $3.25 bottle of wine.
By then, we thought it was supper time so we went the rest
of the block to the ocean, because we hadn’t been there before. We thought we’d
go down the side we were on and back on the other, window shopping for dinner.
We ended up at OB Brewery, a place recommended by a woman we chatted with on
the pier earlier. We split an appetizer of garlicky hummus and pita points then
a shrimp and grits entrée. Both were delicious and the total bill was $20.
After supper, we headed back toward Bacon St. That was where
the market starts. Since we were close, we thought we’d see if the pie seller
still had a mini pecan pie left. He didn’t. We decided to finish the loop
around the market and picked up a mango Italian ice ($3.50). Yum!!
With the sun going down, there were a LOT more people at the
market now, and some vendors that hadn’t been there the first time we looped
it.
There is a certain vibe in the area. You see a lot of young
adults with masses of dreads, bare feet, baja hoodies, and a kind of…unkempt
look. There are young women in yoga pants or pencil leg jeans with rips or cut
threads. Men who don’t have dreads have man-buns, lots of tattoos and piercings
(facial). Some are minimally covered while others have multiple layers of baggy
or flowing fabric. Most of the colors are muted or drab. Many are wearing
skullies. One guy we saw several times on our Sunset Cliffs walk was jogging in
board shorts, T and skully. They had a very 60’s Hippie look, except without
the tie-dye. 60’s hippies had the hair thing going on but, back then, it seemed
more a “natural” statement than anything. With the OB hippies, it seems more
like neglect or disregard than anything. Clouds of marijuana smoke would be
common to both.
Dogs are everywhere. Most businesses have water bowls
outside the door for dogs. The farmers market had signs up saying, by law, no
dogs are allowed within 20 feet of food for sale. It was universally ignored.
One woman we spoke with yesterday joked that anyone living in OB was required
to have a least one dog. It doesn’t seem much of a stretch!
By the time we’d finished our second loop of the market, I
was getting chilly and wanted to head back. At 57 degrees, with no sun to warm
us, the wind was downright brisk. By the time we got back to the house, my
phone said we’d walked over 7.5 miles!
