Slam Diego

Last year I traveled to Orlando for a conference, and as a bonus, I got to see alligators and manatees at Canaveral National Seashore. This year's conference was a little closer to home, so rather than suffer in traffic on the 5, my colleagues and I took the Pacific Surfliner train to San Diego on Saturday instead. Amtrak business class is totally the way to go!

After arriving at the Santa Fe Depot downtown, we took the Green Line trolley ($2.50 in the Pronto app) to the Seaport Village stop near our hotel. Then we headed across the street to grab lunch at Kansas City Barbeque, which was used as the location for the "sleazy bar scene" from Top Gun.

Maybe this pic will ring a bell...

Goodness, gracious - great balls o' fire!

The view from my room was nice! Too bad that most of my days here were spent inside the convention center, listening to presentations and viewing scientific posters. My brain is full...

Kettner Blvd looking north

San Diego Bay and the USS Midway

Of course, one of the perks of business travel is eating on the company dime. Thanks to my brother G for his local recommendations! I enjoyed having dinner at Stone Brewing at Liberty Station on Saturday. On Monday, a group of us went to Nonna in Little Italy for an outstanding meal - there are no food pics, so you'll have to take my word that it was absolutely delicious! Afterwards we all walked over to Extraordinary Desserts, where I bought a cheesecake brownie and a lemon bar to share with R later. Worth every penny that came out of my own pocket!  

Yep, R drove down yesterday to join me in San Diego because the Cubs were in town to play the Padres. After I finished up at the conference and changed into my fan gear, he and I walked over to Petco Park to catch the game. My brother, sister-in-law, and niece came, too.

Great ballpark!

You might recall that our family has a terrible record of watching the Cubs lose games in person, going all the way back to when it was just the two of us:

• June 18, 1995:  Dodgers @ Cubs, 6-0 
• May 12, 2006:  Padres @ Cubs, 10-5
• June 30, 2007:  Brewers @ Cubs, 13-4
• August 20, 2009:  Cubs vs. Dodgers, 2-7
• June 26, 2015:  Cubs vs. Cardinals, 2-3 (10)
• August 29, 2015:  Cubs vs. Dodgers, 2-5
• May 27, 2017:  Cubs vs. Dodgers, 0-5

In Monday's game, the Cubs were leading 8-0. In typical fashion, the bullpen blew up, allowed 7 runs in the bottom of the 6th, and eventually lost 9-8. Ugh. 

But we weren't there, so you can't pin that L on us.

Thankfully, the unlucky streak has ended for two of us! In the top of the 5th, Yan Gomes led off the inning with a solo home run. Then Ian Happ walked, Seiya Suzuki singled, and Cody Bellinger was hit by a pitch to load the bases for Christopher Morel...

GRAND SLAM! Woohoo!

In his first career start, rookie pitcher Ben Brown worked his way through 4 2/3 scoreless innings, but he didn't get to notch the win because Cubs manager Craig Counsell pulled him since he had exceeded his pitch count limit. 

Final score: Cubs 5, Padres 1! 

After I zipped through a few posters at the conference this morning, we checked out of the hotel and drove over to Cabrillo National Monument. Here's how were doing on our progress towards earning the Silver MTA:

    

    Units: 8

    Stamps: 27

    Regions: 2 

Although we've been here a couple times before, we hadn't hiked the Coastal Trail yet. From the visitor center, we headed down towards the tidepools, but since it was high tide, we had no problem finding a spot to park in the lot. 

Sea dahlias in bloom

 

A beautiful way to end our time in San Diego!