San Diego ended up being largely boring. There were a few high points, such as this Tonkotsu Chashu Ramen from Menya Ultra. There are two locations in the San Diego area, but expect both to have lines out the door, and these are the only two locations in North America. My 20-minute wait was absolutely worthwhile. So, there may be some interesting dining options here along the coast, but you must be prepared to drive. Should you want great Mexican food, you might need to visit Chula Vista down south, so at the best of times, if you are up north, it’ll take you 45 minutes to drive the 23 miles or more than 75 minutes if you are attempting this when the freeways are slammed.

There’s a coastal train line operated by Amtrak that travels between San Luis Obispo and San Diego. The pricing is okay, but I’m putting this here because the track it runs on is close to some cliff sides that are disappearing. The Pacific Surfliner takes about 8.5 hours to make the trek that would take 5 hours by car, and there’s free wifi onboard, so while I’m fairly bored here, I could easily see Caroline and I making the trip out this way on a weekend during the late fall for the trip north and back south. Strangely, we’ve never traveled with Amtrak anywhere in America though we have taken subways in New York, Washington D.C., and Los Angeles, steam trains in New Mexico and Colorado, and a couple of old lines in Arizona, one that took us through Verde Canyon and the other from Williams to Grand Canyon National Park.

My routine of walking Drake saw him leading most of the time. This vet’s office saw us at least once a day, sometimes twice. I never learned what it was that drew him here, but this dog loved sniffing their door. He seems to have grown used to me after about ten days of Dion and Ylva’s absence, but still, he’s a cantankerous dog who knows where he wants to go and got quite aggressive, pulling in the direction he wanted to go.

I never grew to appreciate that dogs are a full-time job where their needs must be met every day without a break. How people grow accustomed to the dog’s needs and the inflexibility the relationship offers is far beyond my ability to understand.

More than the beaches and restaurants, this was the most common view I had while here in Southern California. Never did I truly feel inspired to liberate my spleen and find a thread to flow within. Maybe adequate cloud cover or the potential for it is required for my writing? Not a chance, as I live in Arizona and find myself writing quite often. So, what’s the writer’s block that was affecting me here?

Another common view of mine. This one is from a sitting position and is typically only had once a day.

I’m at Red Tracton’s Steakhouse in Del Mar, and the only people under 50 here are the staff. Matter of fact, the majority of diners are well into their retirement years. Every table I see has some stiff drinks on it; a couple has wine, and only one has a beer.

At about $100 a person, the casual conversation is largely about money. One nearby table is discussing their racehorses which makes sense as the Del Mar racetrack is nearby.

Maybe there are some individual diners in the bar area, but I’m the only solo guy in the main dining room. Dinner was okay, but it wasn’t worth what was paid. This joint and my meal were kind of boring just like the city all of this in. As the baby boomers continue to die out, so will this type of restaurant.

There are probably many things to like about this area along the coast, besides the coast and sunsets, I found things difficult to enjoy. If we were to live here, I’m afraid we’d be like most San Diegans who don’t want to deal with parking near the ocean and the perception that the beaches are crowded, so we’d take for granted that we could go at any time and then put it off for years while claiming the ocean is part of the allure. Traffic and cost of living are the chief complaints about life here, which is the same I’ve heard from San Francisco down to Los Angeles, but the jobs that pay high wages are spread throughout the Sunshine State, so people stay. As for me, I’m looking forward to getting home to the dry 110-degree desert where we don’t need to pretend that we reside in some cool, hip place unless we live in Scottsdale.