My Home Town

Today’s version of the Merry Month of May will be taken from the suggested blog topics list: “Share what you love about your hometown.”

Should I bore you with the weather already? We are only two days into this 31 day challenge?!!

But really, when you live 1 mile from Torrey Pines State Beach as the crow flies, and work across the street from the Torrey Pines golf course, reserve & hiking trails…well….

The weather does not suck 🙂 Yes, I can still complain about Mother Nature having bi-polar episodes swinging us from one extreme to the next – like this past 7 days for instance when we were first deluged with a crazy, intense, cold, windy rain storm that boomeranged right into possibly the hottest, windiest Santa Ana heat wave in a long time. Of course, my version of “extreme” temps is going from the 50’s to the 90’s. Some of you might argue that ain’t no thing 🙂

So, let’s look beyond the weather and focus on something else. What I have always loved about San Diego can be described best by one of my favorite morning radio shows Jeff & Jer. They are mid-west/east coast transplants who have been out here since the late 80’s so they have that perspective of having lived many other places and their appreciation for America’s Finest City runs deep.

Jerry always talks about how lucky we are to “live in other people’s postcards”. That is so so true. I have a real blast taking out of town friends on what I call my “10 cent tour of the San Diego coastline with million dollar views.” Depending on how much time you have I start us out on Mt Soledad and then wander north to the hiking trails at Torrey Pines, then drop into Del Mar for a leisurely lunch or dinner on the beach. Since I’ve started running, I am utterly thrilled to discover new trails all over the county. Despite this being a heavily populated area, there are still oodles of well maintained and marked open space trails to explore. And of course, with that weather…well…running year round is a given.

Jeff likes to say that San Diego is a Big City that thinks it’s a Small Town. Also spot on. We don’t have the same “hustle & bustle” energy of other big cities. We certainly have an inferiority complex when it comes to our sports teams! As much as I love sports, it is sure a challenge to love My Padres and Chargers. I call the Padres “The Little Team That Sometimes Can, but Mostly Just Tries Really Hard” – a front office that has changed hands several times and still almost NEVER spends money on players in any significant way. Don’t get me wrong, they are decent enough and sometimes even win their division, and have a gorgeous downtown ballpark, and have a lot of heart and, well….yeah. The Chargers make it more interesting by making the playoffs a fair amount of time and having some true stand out NFL stars, but they can’t get over the hump either. Beyond sports, there is just an overall laid back feeling in San Diego. It’s a beach town. A military town. A fishing town. An outdoor loving town. But…it really does feel more like a TOWN than a CITY.

And, recent mayoral issues aside, we really DO try to stay classy 🙂