Caught Traveling: Petco Park

Happy New Year. This post is appearing on New Years Day.

It was back in September that we decided to go downtown and attend a Padres game. Fairly insignificant event, but baseball games in a stadium are always fun. We took the trolley downtown and walked to the stadium. I took a bunch of pictures of basic downtown sights. We made our way to the lounge and had a couple of drinks sponsored by Cutwater Spirits, the hard liquor company that split off from Ballast Point Breweries. Then we walked around, had a brat, and found our seats. The stadium never got very full, but we didn't care because we never get to games and it's always fun. As an added bonus, the Padres actually beat the Arizona Diamondbacks, 4-2.

I found this to be an interesting shot

This is a steak restaurant. NY strip steaks..

PetCo Park

On my post about ComicCon, I included a shot of PetCo park from the Convention Center. It seemed right to post a shot looking back from PetCo.

I'm captivated by the old Western Metal Supply building that was moulded into the park rather than being torn down like the surrounding lesser factories and wearhouses were.

And yes, there was a badly attended baseball game, too.

It was a date! It was a gathering! It was an excuse to eat Corned Beef and drink Irish car bombs.

Our son, Alexander was in town, and we arranged to go sightseeing with Francine and France and included some time with Alex.

There had been an Irish festival in Balboa Park, but it was the previous weekend. Still, the couple from Colorado hadn't been there, so we met them there outside the famous Air & Space museum. We took a tram to the plaza and walked around a little. From there, we called a Uber for a ride downtown. Our driver, Michelle, was stunning. Tall, in a great dress, and very polite as well as having a french accent and quite obviously a male.

GEOCACHING ; While waiting for the UBER, we picked up a quick find right there in the parking lot. "Balboa Park and Cache", GCQJMH

Once downtown, we walked down the street to The Field. A local Irish Pub. One of he oldest in San Diego with furnishings and such brought over from Ireland itself.

The Field

There was a 40 minute wait, so we walked a couple of doors down to The Blarney Stone Pub for a quick pint of Guinness. By then the table was ready and we were seated. Yes, the place was very crowded as you can imagine any place connected with Ireland on St. Patrick's Day would be. We immediately ordered Irish Car Bombs from our nice Dubliner, Garrett. For a meal, Laurie and I decided to split the mixed plate. It was plenty of food for two. It featured Shepard's pie, Guinness beef stew, corned beef and cabbage, and rasher and cheese. For appetizers we had sausage rolls and Irish potato skins.

When we were done, we walked down the street to a place called The Neighborhood. There, we had great service from Jealous who had more tattoos than I did. We sampled some craft beers as our awesome dinner settled. Then we caught another Uber back to our cars.

The Neighborhood

We drove up to Mira Mesa and visited the Green Flash brewery for a very informative tour. We had samples and enjoyed the company of friends and family.

Green Flash Brewery

Finally, we said goodbye and left for home. Just about the best St. Patrick's Day ever.

San Diego Air& Space Museum

Friends and Family

There was no way I could get to an area for a better shot, but I loved how the Coronado Bridge just runs off into the fog

Plaza Del Mundo

Canyon area with walking trails. Laurel street bridge in distance.

Balboa Park, at 1.875 sq. miles is larger than NYC's Central Park of 1.137 sq. miles. The San Diego zoo uses 99 acres within the park.

Gaslamp District of Downtown San Diego

The Barney Stone Pub

Down the street, the back of Petco Park, home of the SD Padres, showing the historic Western Metal Supply Company building which was the foundational corner of the ballpark.
http://www.si.com/mlb/2014/07/21/ballpark-quirks-san-diego-petco-park-western-metal-supply-company