Nataliya and Seth's La Jolla Vacation

Jared made us some pancakes which were very tasty! Once gorged, we headed out on our last full day in the San Diego area.

We headed out to Fiesta Island which is a popular spot for people to do watersports, run or bicycle. In the water, they even had a couple ramps for water skiers. We didn't see anyone utilizing the facility, however. Also, I'm not sure it's really an island since we drove over land to get to it. I suppose since over 300 degrees of the area was surrounded by water, it's kind of an island...

Then we drove to Coronado Island, which Jared says features one of the top ten beaches in the United States... On this island, they have the famous Hotel del Coronado where several movies filmed and also where famous people like Milton Berle, Cary Grant and George Burns stayed while visiting the area. We looked around the grounds until we got our fill.

After a quick walk through town, we got back into Jared's car and drove to Imperial Beach. This city is the most southern city in California and just mere miles from Mexico! The area looked kind of run down and there wasn't much there to see. We did see active border patrol activity with frequent helicopter take-offs and landings by the ocean.

From there, we headed to Chula Vista to try out some of that raw food cuisine we'd only heard about on the East Coast. Karina recommended this particular place, Cilantro Live, because of the good reviews it had received. Considering how good Karina's suggestions had been, we were looking forward to this place. However, once we arrived, we discovered that they had just changed their dining schedule. They were now closed on Mondays in order to take some time to experiment and create new menu selections.

Disappointed and hungry, we contacted Karina and agreed to try some Afghani food. We headed to Hillcrest and stopped at Khyber Pass where Karina was already waiting for us. The food was different but was very good.

Afterwards, Jared, Nataliya and myself headed to Torrey Pines Glider Park where we watched a hang glider catching the air currents and gliding to and fro. After about 15 minutes of this, Jared explained that Black's Beach was below and that it was also a nude beach.

The only way down was a steep and dangerous-looking path down the cliff and onto the beach. Considering the difficulty in getting to the beach, I thought it would be great to head down there and just walk around.

The path turned out to be more difficult than any of us anticipated. The walk down was a bit tiring, but once we got to the bottom, we just spent some time walking down the beach. Jared thought there might be another way back up the cliff a ways down the beach, so we walked in that direction. About a mile down the beach, we found no path and headed back, pausing every so often to admire the sunset.

The climb up the hill was a bit more difficult than going down, and I had to pause several times to catch my breath. I'm not sure whether Nataliya and Jared needed to catch their breath, but they waited politely. This was definitely a great aerobic workout (assuming you don't get a heart attack first!)

Once at the top, we kocked off the sand and headed out for some sushi at Sushi on the Rock. This is a pricey sushi joint which had some happy hour deals that we took advantage of. It was very good, and we made a meal of it.

After the meal, we headed to Ralph's supermarket and picked up some firewood. One of the beached we had passed allowed for outdoor fires in designated pits. We thought it would be a fun way to spend the evening. We also picked up marshmallows, chocolate bars, and graham crackers. From there, we went to Linen & Things to find something we could use to cook the marshmallows. They had just the thing - a extendable fork that retracted to the size of a large pen! Perfect!

We headed back to Jared's place to relax and we called Karina who was really tired. We guilted her into joining us, since it would be the last time we'd see her. We all met at the beach and just enjoyed the hot fire, the smells of the beach, and the sound of the surf. Naturally, we enjoyed all that after we had our S'mores! Mmmm!