Due to some confusion about when exactly the tide went out, we were unable to take full advantage of the famous tide pools near the Cabrillo National Monument. As it turned out, both low tides were just before the park opened and just before the park closed for the day. Bad luck.

The coast was beautiful, however, and thanks to the clear weather, we could easily see to Mexico.

(click on the photo for the larger version via Flickr)

Unfortunately, the place was absolutely crawling with people so without the tide pools to occupy us, we bade the park a fond farewell.

Personally? I thought this place was a ripoff. It’s not that they weren’t lovely views of the Pacific, but an $8 day use fee for a few short hiking trails? We were wondering why so many people were walking up the steep road to the trails until we spotted the small parking area just outside the entrance gate. So, apparently only the tourists pay. Lovely.

The Guy Fleming trail was a short 2/3 mile loop with Pacific Ocean overlooks and ridiculous amounts of signage telling us to keep out/off things. I don’t know what it is about Californians and their signs, but they were everywhere. A lot of good it seems to do when we could clearly see footprints where folks had jumped over the chains in places to hike near the cliffs when they were asked multiple times not to. Plus, the actual Torrey pines weren’t altogether special or unique and the literature we were handed didn’t offer much insight either.

Perhaps the loveliest scene here is the sandstone cliffs rising up from the beach. We visited about 2 hours before sunset, so the rock was lit up nicely. A little disappointed as we were looking forward to something a little more profound.

Both Eric and I had mixed feeling about taking a whale watching cruise, but the time was right for the northern migration of the California gray whales back up to the Bering Sea along the coast of California, so we gave it a go.

I bought some dramamine from the onboard shop just before we sailed off and I am very happy I did. My eyes were pleasantly focused on the horizon while others around me were feeling pretty awful due to the Pacific Ocean waves.

You can’t see it from our photos but there were about 7 or 8 boats crowding around these two whales. Law states that you cannot approach within 100 yards of a whale, but folks in motorized rafts were whizzing by and it wasn’t just the whales that were getting agitated.

Of course seeing the whales in the wild was exciting, but overall the experience left me cold. It certainly didn’t seem worth the harassment of the whales for a few fluke photos.

Another highlight of the trip was the lovely views of the city and harbor when we came back into port.

Even the seals were showing off.

The “No Trespassing” sign is a nice touch but I don’t think it’s working.

On another note, our Garmin helped us immensely throughout this trip. It even showed us how to get back to shore. :)

(That big chunk of land at the top where all the roads stop is Mexico.)

I can’t even begin to explain how terrible the weather was while we were there… even when surrounding areas were clear, Julian was stuck in a freezing rain cloud (city is up around 4000 feet). All night was spent listening to the constant rain as our room had sliding glass doors as one wall. We finally just got up and watched Superbad because we couldn’t sleep anymore.

Even with the unfortunate weather, I could see how charming Julian could be. Supposedly they are known for their apples up there, so fall is probably a great time to visit, especially with all the pie places in town!

We stayed at Angels Landing Country Inn just north of downtown. Our Jr Suite was roomy, but the sliding glass door was a bit troublesome to lock and not very safe looking. No matter, because I think we were the only people anywhere near the place that Thursday night.

Our two restaurant experiences were good and everyone we spoke with was friendly. For dinner we ate at the Julian Grille, Eric got chicken stuffed with ham and swiss covered in sliced peaches (from a can, unfortunately) and I got the trout with capers and mixed mushrooms. We split a bottle of California wine and remarked how very un-California this town felt.

Margarita’s was recommended to us for breakfast the following morning, so I went all out and ordered a tortilla stuffed with scrambled egg, chorizo, beans and cheese, topped with a mild red sauce. Eric went the more traditional route with eggs, potatoes and toast and Ryan ordered the least greasy (in a good way) chicken-fried steak I’ve ever seen. In fact, all were tasty, well priced, AND sustained us on a six mile hike. Not bad.

Our ridiculously cheap rental car took us out to the desert for the first night of our San Diego trip. ($48 including taxes for five days, the guy even commented that this was why his salary is what it is! Whoops.)

There are shorter ways to get to Julian, CA (our room reservation for the night) but we decided to drive out on I-8 and head north through Cucamaya Rancho State Park. It took about 45 minutes to get out there and the bustle of the city was replaced by desert and mountain views.

Throughout the drive we saw evidence of the California wildfire damage of last year—entire hillsides covered in scorched trees.

My brother, Ryan, drove down from LA for a day of hiking with us. He must have left well before dawn because I got a phone call at 8am that he was sitting in the parking lot! :)

As Eric mentioned, Friday started out unremarkable, but after a filling breakfast at Margarita’s in Julian, we were hoping for the best… there’s only so much hiking one can tolerate in bad weather.

The chilly rain gave way to breaking clouds and finally some warm sun by early afternoon. I swear we went through three seasons on the Palm Canyon trail hike, from downpour to hot sun, but the views were completely worth it.

All this hiking through the mountains and all of a sudden, a palm oasis!

Surprisingly (considering it’s the desert) there was a rushing creek with several waterfalls throughout the hike. So I guess all the rain did have some benefit!

The Anza-Borrego visitor’s center was very helpful in terms of information on hiking trails. We didn’t buy a detailed map ($1) on this visit because we only did the Palm Canyon hike. If the weather had been more predictable we probably would have tried to do more, but as it was, we saw quite a bit on this five mile roundtrip hike.

I wasn’t quite done with the Switzerland posts before we found ourselves in Tampa and then San Diego. Such trouble to keep up with posting when you are out doing the stuff you are supposed to be updating regularly about!

Anyway, accommodations are not cheap in downtown Zurich, even in the winter off-season, and most of the downtown hotels had noise complaints on TripAdvisor. We finally settled on the Leoneck Hotel (charming crazy cow theme, cowbell noise on website included) and made our reservations through a hotel booking company we found via kayak.com, GTA Hotels, because they had the best rate and it included breakfast. Thankfully, Zurich is not that big, so even though the hotel we chose was near the train station (convenient for getting our carry-ons to and from), it was only a short walk or tram ride to the middle of Old Town.

The lovely girl behind the counter pleased us by unexpectedly upgrading us to a triple, even though we had prepaid our double room. We were on the fourth floor with fantastic views of the city. Our balcony wrapped around two sides of the room, and although it was too cold to sit outside, we did spend quite a bit of time with the curtains open, enjoying the view.

Our room had a mural of a money tree in the corner and the bathroom had a alps-themed shower curatin with cows and edelweiss flowers. The shower head was too low for Eric, but the water pressure was fine and the mirror didn’t fog up too badly in the small room.

Although the breakfast was simple (orange juice/coffee, cold meats and cheese, muselix, eggs, and bread) it was enough to keep us going. Upon checking in you get little wooden cow tokens to redeem for breakfast. Plus, the decor was entertaining…

The hotel from the street…

Overall, the price was right and the location was fine. Even during Fasnacht, we had a quiet stay. Recommended.