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During a recent trip to San Diego for a conference my mom was attending, we ended up visiting Old Town, Coronado, and Balboa Park. We also stopped at San Diego State and toured around for a few hours. We went in the dome section of the library for the first time and it was interesting to see the area that connects to the old library underground. Here’s an area of the campus that I thought had a cute artsy cactus.

The first night we stopped at Casa de Reyes for dinner in Old Town San Diego. The food was so good and came out so fast after we ordered. It was my first time trying chamoy in a mango margarita. Chamoy can be a liquid or paste consistency and the flavor is salty, sweet, sour, and spiced with chilies.

We also walked around some shops after dinner. If you’re looking for a ghost tour, (because who isn’t!?) they have tours at the Whaley House. I’ll definitely need to go back since we just walked around the outside of the main house, but we did go inside the gift shop later on in the week. Below is a picture I took after leaving the restaurant. There is a small courtyard next to the dining area. This was on a weekday so it wasn’t busy at all.

The cover photo for this post is from Tuna Harbor where there is a statue of the famous World War II photograph of a sailor kissing a nurse. This was my first time seeing the statue. It looks so much bigger in person. The ship off to the right is the USS Midway Museum. I’ll also put the same photo below since it won’t show up in the email blog posts as a cover image. There was a section of wooden planks leading up to the statue that were very unnecessary for a wheelchair user who is never one to choose to go over a very bumpy surface, but the only other way was going through the parking lot. It’s always about the aesthetic and not wheelchair user comfort I guess!

In Coronado, we went to the Hotel del Coronado. In the lobby they were selling Top Gun shirts, jackets, and hats. The hotel is being remodeled right now so not all of the dining areas were open. We stopped at a restaurant down the street called Island Pasta Coronado that had very good homemade pasta. Definitely check it out if you love pasta like me!

Balboa Park was my favorite and a fun place to stop. We were there before any of the museums opened so we need to go back sometime. The area was originally 1400 acres of land set aside for the city park in 1868. In 1915, San Diego was going to host the Panama-California Exposition and decided on the name Balboa Park after the Spanish-born, Vasco Nuñez de Balboa who was the first European to spot the Pacific Ocean while on exploration in Panama (balboapark.org). We walked around for a bit and the sun finally came out so the garden area was beautiful in the light.

Everywhere was very wheelchair friendly, but the hotel where we stayed didn’t have a parking lot above ground. The large wheelchair accessible travel van couldn’t fit in the below ground parking structure so we parked on the street which was being dug up and redone. We used the parking lot and driveway of a nearby business across the street, to unload me in the wheelchair and then my dad would park the van on the street. This was the least accessible place we visited and too bad we were staying there! It really opens my eyes to what able bodied people think is accessible and it definitely was not. Here’s a photo of the wheelchair accessible unloading spot that had the concrete dug up on the sidewalk. So how is one supposed to exit the vehicle in their chair? We won’t be staying here next time, but the places we stopped and got to experience around town were definitely the highlights.