Kwaay Paay Peak - 1194 ft

Terrible hiking weather yesterday... all that haze, not sure why I bothered.  They say it'll be better next week.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Save room for dessert!

North Fortuna Peak

Yesterday I hiked up North Fortuna Peak in San Diego's Mission Trails Park.  My GPS tells me that is was a little over six miles round trip on the rout that I took.

Though this warning sign was right at the trail head I didn't see it until after I got back.  After thinking about this a bit it seems like it's not a big risk for me but I'll probably carry pepper spray in the future.

The trail starts near the Old Mission Dam.

The dam and canal were completed in 1816 after three years of construction and was in regular use until 1831.  Seems like a lot of work and expense for only 15 years of service.

The first half of the trail has some mild elevation changes.

Most of the elevation gain, to nearly 1200 ft, is on a power line access road and then the final trail to the summit.  The road was like walking on ball bearings on the way down.

Mission Trails Regional Park Hike

After a late start yesterday afternoon I headed out to explore San Diego's Mission Trails Park.  I parked at the visitor's center and stopped in for a trail map before setting off on a short 2 mile hike on the interpretive trail that circles the visitors center.

The view from the visitor center observation deck.

I'm always interested in learning about   native plants and at the start of the interpretive trail they did a great job of identifying many of the trail side plants. This was a Mohave Yucca plant-- but I probably remember it because I've seen them many times.

Heading out on the visitors center interpretive loop trail.

On the trail map above you'll see that I took a detour off of the loop trail.  This took me across a crudely constructed rock and concrete dam shown to the right.

You can learn more about the park at:
http://www.mtrp.org/

As you can see there are still a lot of trails for me to explore in the park.

Riding the rails in San Diego

I spent yesterday afternoon riding around San Diego on their trolley lines with a $5 all-day pass.  This is the only picture I actually took for this post.  The others came from the MTS system web-sight.

As shown above there are three trolley lines that surround downtown and the greater San Diego area.  I started on the E Street Station Blue Line about seven miles south of downtown.  I changed to the Green Line at the 12th & Imperial Station and rode it to the Grossmont Station where I changed to the Orange Line which I rode back to the 12th & Imperial Station.  Then I was able to get back on the Blue Line for the ride back to the E Street Station in Chula Vista.

San Diego has a long trolley history dating back to the 1880's.  You can read more about it at:
The San Diego Trolley

Yesterday was actually my second trip on the trolley.  Last week on my trip to Balboa Park I took my bike along and got off at the City College Station shown here and continued by bike to the park.

On yesterday's ride I transferred to the Green Line that circles around to the west and north of downtown San Diego.  This is a picture of the stop at the Santa Fe railroad depot.

Near San Diego State University the trolley goes into a tunnel and ends up at this station at the university.

Balboa Park

Today I rode the MTS Trolley from the E Street station here in Chula Vista downtown to tour around San Diego's Balboa park.

I was able to take my bike on the train so I biked over  to the train station about 3 miles from where I'm living in Chula Vista.  After getting off the train downtown then I rode about a half mile to get to Balboa Park.

This park is so full of attractions it's hard to know where to start.  I didn't really plan to see anything specific today but just kind of make a survey of the place and feel the vibe.

Many of the buildings in the park where built for the 1915 worlds fair- Panama-California Exposition.

...like this Botanical Building.


Just a few of the attractions that are here include:
San Diego Aerospace Museum
San Diego Art Museum
Museum of Photographic Arts
San Diego Model Railroad Museum
San Diego Natural History Museum
Botanical Building
Spreckles Organ Pavilion
San Diego Automotive Muesum

So there are many days of adventures here...

I'm sure I'll be back another day to tour the Model Railroad Museum.

... a small look at what I could see peeking through the entry gate at the model railroad museum.

A horn player near one of the fountains.  He sounded pretty good.

Pretty amazing details on many of these buildings.