Girls' Weekend in Coronado
This past weekend was what has become "annual girls' weekend in San Diego" -- where my mom, Aunt Lora, and my cousins Shirley and Marissa come down for the weekend and we do fun San Diego activities. Last year they came down and just stayed at my apartment, and we went to the Wild Animal Park and saw the tall ship festival downtown at the harbor. But this year we decided to branch out a bit and decided to spend our weekend on Coronado, nifty little peninsula town that it is. It was an awesome weekend, and I am all set to move to Coronado and live there permanently (if only I were a millionaire).
I left work a bit early on Friday and met everyone at my place around 3pm. From there we went to the Zoo for a few hours to hit up the annual white elephant sale and to check out the new Elephant Odyssey exhibit that they hadn't seen yet. The Zoo's white elephant sale is the best thing ever -- always such good deals and neat stuff. Aunt Lora had hurt her back a couple days beforehand, so we got a wheelchair to push her around in so she wouldn't have to walk so much. That made for an interesting afternoon of getting around to the Elephant Odyssey exhibit and then back down the huge hill by the polar bears. We ended up catching a shuttle to take us back to the front when we were too daunted by the remaining hills between us and the exit to get out. :-P It was a nifty afternoon at the Zoo, though.
From the Zoo, we drove over the bridge to Coronado, and got to see a lovely fog descending over downtown San Diego as we did. We checked into our hotel, the Glorietta Bay Inn, which is right across the street from the Del. It's the old mansion of Mr. Spreckels, a huge investor in San Diego from the late 1800's. The main mansion house is mostly for the lobby, breakfast area, and music room (has an awesome piano that plays itself, plus comfy chairs for lounging in while looking at the books on the bookshelves). There are something like 10 rooms that you can stay in actually in the mansion, but the rest of the hotel rooms have been built up around the mansion itself. We had a lovely room, #558, on the ground floor right next to the back entrance to the mansion itself. Perfect! Even with two queen beds, a rollaway bed, a little kitchen area, a desk area, and bathroom (including 2 sinks!), there was still plenty of room inside, and we didn't feel crowded at all. Perfecto. We even had a TV and DVD player, so we could easily watch our DVD selection for the night, "Some Like It Hot." This Marilyn Monroe/Tony Curtis/Jack Lemmon movie was partly filmed right across the street at the Del in 1959. That makes this the 50-year anniversary of the movie, and it just so happens that a big "Some Like It Hot" weekend celebration was going on at the Del all weekend long THIS very weekend that we were there. Perfect timing. :) We walked downtown to have dinner at the diner that's attached to Moo Time Creamery first, and then came back and watched the movie. I had never seen it before, but I thought it was hilarious, especially for an "old" black and white movie. Not dated at all. I guess there's something timeless about cross-dressing and running from the mob. :-P Everyone else kind of snored their way through the film, but I saw it all, heehee. :)
Saturday morning we got to get up and start with our free continental breakfast, one of the nicest that I've had. I had a toasted bagel and cream cheese, a banana, and some pineapple. Plus some apple juice, and I could have chosen any other number of things to eat and drink, too. We ate out on the front patio of the mansion, looking out towards Glorietta Bay and seeing all the sailboats parked out there as the sun rose higher in the sky. It was a lovely morning. We played some Apples to Apples in our room, and stuffed all my wedding invitations for me! Then we got ready and headed out to the Del and the beach for the day! Walking around the Hotel Del Coronado is always so cool -- it makes you feel like a wannabe rich person, heehee. We strolled around the hotel a bit and then headed out toward the beach. We climbed on some rocks for awhile, strolled in the GOLD sand, and just generally enjoyed the view of the ocean and the Del. I even managed a bit of a nap while laying out. :) When we got tired of being sun-baked, we walked back to downtown and went to Moo Time Creamery for an ice cream break. I had orange sherbert and "silly vanilla," a bright blue/fake-colored vanilla ice cream. It was delicious. :) Afterwards mom, Shirley, and I continued walking around downtown and went in a few shops along the way. The best place that we visited was the Coronado Historical Society building, where they have a little museum and gift shop inside. The museum tells some of the history of Coronado, and they also had a big exhibit on L. Frank Baum, author of the Wizard of Oz, who penned many of his stories while visiting Coronado. It was pretty nifty. Makes me want to actually read the books! We made it back to the hotel in time for afternoon snack time, so we got lemonade and cookies and sat on the mansion patio again to enjoy it. I had brought some strawberries, so we had strawberries with our lemonade, and we played some Yahtzee while sitting out there. No better way to spend an afternoon! We headed over to the Village Pizzeria for dinner, since we had seen a lot of people going there over the past couple of days and it sure looked promising. We got a nice table on the sidewalk and ordered a huge pizza for the 5 of us to share. It was good, but not quite as stellar as I had hoped. Mostly because it was quite spicy, I think. Still good to have pizza, though. :) After that we walked on down to the Coronado Playhouse (I LOVE how everything is within walking distance!) to see our 8pm showing of Hamlet. I do love free Shakespeare. Nevermind that it's quite the amateur performance; no matter how Hamlet is done, there are still all of the famous lines that are in there, and it's so neat to hear them all again. I do love me some Shakespeare. :) We made a detour through the Del on our way back to our own hotel, just in time to see the back of Tony Curtis's head as he was signing things for an art auction thing for part of "Some Like It Hot" weekend! We saw the back of his head in a white cowboy hat through a window as we walked up to the main lobby. Then we tried to sneak in to the art auction thing, but we were promptly asked to leave as apparently it was obvious that we didn't belong there. Ha! But at least I've been in the same room as Tony Curtis, heehee. :-P We walked through more of the hotel as well, and got to ogle at the ornate architecture and sheer size of the entire hotel, too. The Del is pretty cool. Then back to the hotel to turn in for the night!
Sunday we once again started with delicious breakfast, but we ate in the music room this time. Mmmm, so good. I sat around on a couch in the music room after we were done eating just to read my book and enjoy being there for awhile. It was lovely. Back in the room, we played some Simpson's Pit for a bit before packing up to go. We checked out and went up to the north/east end of Coronado, by the ferry landing, for the morning. We stopped at an art show thing in the park that we were just driving by on Orange Street on our way up, too. Then up near the ferry landing there was a big arts and crafts show thing going on, so it was fun to walk around and look at all the stuff, including the Scottish store. :) There was a band playing live music, and the beach was lovely to walk along, especially with a view of downtown San Diego right across the water. For lunch we went to Clayton's Coffee Shop, back towards the south/west end of Coronado. It's another Coronado institution, a diner that has been there for over 60 years. It's a 50's diner with mostly an elliptical counter in the middle that you sit at the "bar" to eat from, but there are a few booths on the side. We managed to snag a booth, so we could put in quarters to the little jukebox machine on our table to have oldies music played on the loudspeakers throughout the restaurant. It was awesome. And they had the perfect lunch combo of a half grilled cheese sandwich plus a cup of soup (chicken tortilla, no less). Love the old school diner. Next time I'm getting a hand-crafted milkshake and some of their famous pie. Or perhaps breakfast, their other specialty.... :)
And that was about it for our Girls' Weekend on Coronado! We headed back to my apartment briefly, but then everyone else headed on home up to LA. It was a lovely weekend, most excellent for all things Coronado. I'm ready to move there and just stay on the "island" all the time. As soon as I get my hands on some millions.... :)
I left work a bit early on Friday and met everyone at my place around 3pm. From there we went to the Zoo for a few hours to hit up the annual white elephant sale and to check out the new Elephant Odyssey exhibit that they hadn't seen yet. The Zoo's white elephant sale is the best thing ever -- always such good deals and neat stuff. Aunt Lora had hurt her back a couple days beforehand, so we got a wheelchair to push her around in so she wouldn't have to walk so much. That made for an interesting afternoon of getting around to the Elephant Odyssey exhibit and then back down the huge hill by the polar bears. We ended up catching a shuttle to take us back to the front when we were too daunted by the remaining hills between us and the exit to get out. :-P It was a nifty afternoon at the Zoo, though.
From the Zoo, we drove over the bridge to Coronado, and got to see a lovely fog descending over downtown San Diego as we did. We checked into our hotel, the Glorietta Bay Inn, which is right across the street from the Del. It's the old mansion of Mr. Spreckels, a huge investor in San Diego from the late 1800's. The main mansion house is mostly for the lobby, breakfast area, and music room (has an awesome piano that plays itself, plus comfy chairs for lounging in while looking at the books on the bookshelves). There are something like 10 rooms that you can stay in actually in the mansion, but the rest of the hotel rooms have been built up around the mansion itself. We had a lovely room, #558, on the ground floor right next to the back entrance to the mansion itself. Perfect! Even with two queen beds, a rollaway bed, a little kitchen area, a desk area, and bathroom (including 2 sinks!), there was still plenty of room inside, and we didn't feel crowded at all. Perfecto. We even had a TV and DVD player, so we could easily watch our DVD selection for the night, "Some Like It Hot." This Marilyn Monroe/Tony Curtis/Jack Lemmon movie was partly filmed right across the street at the Del in 1959. That makes this the 50-year anniversary of the movie, and it just so happens that a big "Some Like It Hot" weekend celebration was going on at the Del all weekend long THIS very weekend that we were there. Perfect timing. :) We walked downtown to have dinner at the diner that's attached to Moo Time Creamery first, and then came back and watched the movie. I had never seen it before, but I thought it was hilarious, especially for an "old" black and white movie. Not dated at all. I guess there's something timeless about cross-dressing and running from the mob. :-P Everyone else kind of snored their way through the film, but I saw it all, heehee. :)
Saturday morning we got to get up and start with our free continental breakfast, one of the nicest that I've had. I had a toasted bagel and cream cheese, a banana, and some pineapple. Plus some apple juice, and I could have chosen any other number of things to eat and drink, too. We ate out on the front patio of the mansion, looking out towards Glorietta Bay and seeing all the sailboats parked out there as the sun rose higher in the sky. It was a lovely morning. We played some Apples to Apples in our room, and stuffed all my wedding invitations for me! Then we got ready and headed out to the Del and the beach for the day! Walking around the Hotel Del Coronado is always so cool -- it makes you feel like a wannabe rich person, heehee. We strolled around the hotel a bit and then headed out toward the beach. We climbed on some rocks for awhile, strolled in the GOLD sand, and just generally enjoyed the view of the ocean and the Del. I even managed a bit of a nap while laying out. :) When we got tired of being sun-baked, we walked back to downtown and went to Moo Time Creamery for an ice cream break. I had orange sherbert and "silly vanilla," a bright blue/fake-colored vanilla ice cream. It was delicious. :) Afterwards mom, Shirley, and I continued walking around downtown and went in a few shops along the way. The best place that we visited was the Coronado Historical Society building, where they have a little museum and gift shop inside. The museum tells some of the history of Coronado, and they also had a big exhibit on L. Frank Baum, author of the Wizard of Oz, who penned many of his stories while visiting Coronado. It was pretty nifty. Makes me want to actually read the books! We made it back to the hotel in time for afternoon snack time, so we got lemonade and cookies and sat on the mansion patio again to enjoy it. I had brought some strawberries, so we had strawberries with our lemonade, and we played some Yahtzee while sitting out there. No better way to spend an afternoon! We headed over to the Village Pizzeria for dinner, since we had seen a lot of people going there over the past couple of days and it sure looked promising. We got a nice table on the sidewalk and ordered a huge pizza for the 5 of us to share. It was good, but not quite as stellar as I had hoped. Mostly because it was quite spicy, I think. Still good to have pizza, though. :) After that we walked on down to the Coronado Playhouse (I LOVE how everything is within walking distance!) to see our 8pm showing of Hamlet. I do love free Shakespeare. Nevermind that it's quite the amateur performance; no matter how Hamlet is done, there are still all of the famous lines that are in there, and it's so neat to hear them all again. I do love me some Shakespeare. :) We made a detour through the Del on our way back to our own hotel, just in time to see the back of Tony Curtis's head as he was signing things for an art auction thing for part of "Some Like It Hot" weekend! We saw the back of his head in a white cowboy hat through a window as we walked up to the main lobby. Then we tried to sneak in to the art auction thing, but we were promptly asked to leave as apparently it was obvious that we didn't belong there. Ha! But at least I've been in the same room as Tony Curtis, heehee. :-P We walked through more of the hotel as well, and got to ogle at the ornate architecture and sheer size of the entire hotel, too. The Del is pretty cool. Then back to the hotel to turn in for the night!
Sunday we once again started with delicious breakfast, but we ate in the music room this time. Mmmm, so good. I sat around on a couch in the music room after we were done eating just to read my book and enjoy being there for awhile. It was lovely. Back in the room, we played some Simpson's Pit for a bit before packing up to go. We checked out and went up to the north/east end of Coronado, by the ferry landing, for the morning. We stopped at an art show thing in the park that we were just driving by on Orange Street on our way up, too. Then up near the ferry landing there was a big arts and crafts show thing going on, so it was fun to walk around and look at all the stuff, including the Scottish store. :) There was a band playing live music, and the beach was lovely to walk along, especially with a view of downtown San Diego right across the water. For lunch we went to Clayton's Coffee Shop, back towards the south/west end of Coronado. It's another Coronado institution, a diner that has been there for over 60 years. It's a 50's diner with mostly an elliptical counter in the middle that you sit at the "bar" to eat from, but there are a few booths on the side. We managed to snag a booth, so we could put in quarters to the little jukebox machine on our table to have oldies music played on the loudspeakers throughout the restaurant. It was awesome. And they had the perfect lunch combo of a half grilled cheese sandwich plus a cup of soup (chicken tortilla, no less). Love the old school diner. Next time I'm getting a hand-crafted milkshake and some of their famous pie. Or perhaps breakfast, their other specialty.... :)
And that was about it for our Girls' Weekend on Coronado! We headed back to my apartment briefly, but then everyone else headed on home up to LA. It was a lovely weekend, most excellent for all things Coronado. I'm ready to move there and just stay on the "island" all the time. As soon as I get my hands on some millions.... :)