San Diego Day 3: From Sound Waves to Ocean Waves

Dear Husband and I scheduled most of a week in San Diego around the wedding so we could enjoy visiting the city for the first time. Instead of a "post-wedding brunch," there were tacos!

Then several of us de-camped to Balboa Park for the weekly free organ concert at Spreckles Pavilion, which was built in 1915.

After that, we visited Point Loma to look at the old lighthouse and take in the impressive views of the Pacific Ocean. This had not been on my list of things to do, and I am so glad that I under-planned this trip, in order to be flexible enough to change our plans on a dime, because this was a great addition to our itinerary. The breeze up there was so sweet, and the exhibits about living at the lighthouse were pretty neat.

We skipped the museum and statue to the European explorer who "discovered" the area in favor of the old lighthouse, which lit the passage into the bay from 1855-1891. As scenic as the crest of the peninsula is, fog and cloud cover often obscured the light, so after only 36 years, a new lighthouse was built at the tip of the spit of land, down by the water.

Above: old lighthouse; below: new lighthouse (under the palm trees).

You can't get all the way up in the old lighthouse tower,

so here are views of the spiral staircase and the Fresnel light from below.

DH and I ended the day with My Awesome Parents eating seafood in Ocean Beach, which is a unique experience all by itself, and walking down the pier for what turned out to be a cloudy sunset. At 1,971 feet, the pier is the longest concrete pier in the world and is good for fishing, watching surfers, and/or visiting the cafe out over the waves.