So Much to See

We all know San Diego has an excellent year-round climate, a famous zoo and the original Sea World, but if you look beneath the surface, there is even more to this historic city.

I recently traveled to San Diego with my daughters, Olivia, 23, and Charlotte, 13. On previous visits, we spent most of our time at the must-see zoo and Sea World, but on this trip, we were determined to concentrate on all the other fun we had missed.

By the end of our four-day trip, we had sailed California's coastal waters, watched whales and taken relaxing walks on what must be the finest beaches in the West. We had traveled through time at Old Town Historic Park, visited great museums at Balboa Park and checked out the trendy Gaslamp Quarter.

Our base of operations was at Paradise Point Resort and Spa, on a 44-acre private island on Mission Bay, only 10 minutes from the heart of the city. We had two adjoining rooms, which together made a complete bungalow-style cottage. This gave us two bedrooms, two bathrooms and even three separate dressing areas, each with marble sinks and closets. We also had a large living area complete with a small kitchen and dining room table that seated six.

The sliding glass doors in the living room opened onto a private patio overlooking a sandy beach on Mission Bay. If we hadn't had so many places to go in San Diego, we could have had a grand time without leaving the property. The resort not only has more than a mile of private beach but also five swimming pools, five tennis courts, bike paths, an 18-hole putting golf course, full-service spa and a private, full-service marina.

On our first evening, we strolled along one of the dozens of narrow paths within the resort's tropical gardens to the resort's premiere restaurant, Baleen. It overlooks Mission Bay, so if you dine al fresco and time your arrival right, you can see a classic California sunset from your table.

Chef Megan Reichman oversees this upscale restaurant, and the food is not only perfectly prepared, but impressively presented. Olivia started with Baleen lobster bisque followed by filet mignon with Point Reyes blue cheese butter, while I started on melt-in-your-mouth seared diver scallops topped with a kumquat-chardonnay glaze. My entree was roasted northern halibut with sun-dried tomato and cashew tapenade, and I will long remember its fine flavor. Charlotte, a cautious diner, enjoyed a slow-roasted half chicken.

On the morning of our first full day, we headed to Old Town San Diego State Historic Park. Here, one can feel what California must have been before the world came knocking, in the romantic Mexican and early American periods from 1821 to 1872. One highlight was the Wells Fargo Museum, which shows off artifacts from the company's legendary era of shipping gold and passengers throughout the West. Here is Mason Street School, said to be California's first public schoolhouse, and also the Seeley Stables Museum that showcases overland transportation and includes an excellent selection of wagons and carriages.

Old Town's restaurants are famous. We stopped at the Old Town Mexican Café for an authentic south-of-the-border-style lunch.

Soon, we returned to Paradise Point and directly to the marina where we met up with Rob Luna, who would take us sailing for the afternoon. I grew up in an avid sailing family back east and even taught sailing, but have found it difficult, living now in the desert, to hand down this tradition to my daughters. Today, though, Charlotte would take the helm, getting a two-hour lesson from Luna on a 25-foot Catalina, and one of my small dreams for my daughters would be fulfilled. I'm prejudiced in this respect, but believe every person, even some dedicated landlubber, should at least once know the feeling of harnessing the wind. In San Diego, they'll show you how.

Luna, originally from San Paulo, Brazil, has been in the states for five years.

"I came here on vacation, met my future wife and ended up staying," he said. Formerly a stressed-out banker, he gave up that demanding life for a relaxed one of surfing and sailing.

The next morning, we went to the downtown harbor to embark on a half-day whale-watching trip with Hornblower Cruises. We always have had good luck at whale watching, but we go for the total experience. I don't suppose even a whale could tell you where she'll be tomorrow, so when you're looking for whales, sometimes none has to be enough.

The best part of this cruise was the first half hour, taking in the sights of San Diego Bay as we made our way out to the ocean. We enjoyed great views of the USS Midway, the Naval Air Station and Cabrillo National Monument.

Once the boat passed the protection of Point Loma (incidentally, the most southwesterly point in the contiguous United States), the seas became extremely rough. Choppy water and white caps aren't ideal for whale watching, yet we nevertheless saw two gray whales quite close up, dozens of Pacific white-sided and bottlenose dolphins and a few California sea lions.

On board were several volunteers from the San Diego Natural History Museum, including Kim Cwynar, who told us about the migration of gray whales. "South bound, they hug the coast using area landmarks," she said, explaining why it's possible to find them at all.

The annual migration of gray whales is one of nature's most impressive undertakings; each round-trip journey is 10,000 to 14,000 miles. The whales' home is in the Bering and Chukchi seas near Alaska; in October they leave it, bound for Baja California, Mexico. The southbound journey alone takes two or three months. The females usually calve in the lagoons of Baja, and they stay there two or three months until their young grow strong enough to accompany their moms on the return north.

Our cruise would have been better without the constant sound of people throwing up, which encouraged others to go and do likewise. One poor man slipped in the bow area, hurting himself seriously enough he was unable to walk, and had to be carried ashore on a stretcher. So the day had its dark side, but people who see gray whales never forget it, and they'll probably forget tossing their cookies.

Once ashore, we headed just up the street to the Gaslamp Quarter. Here we found 16 city blocks packed with restaurants, bars and shops, all bustling with activity. There are more than 90 historic buildings, and you could spend days just admiring the architecture of these renovated gems. The ideal place to start is at the William Heath Davis House, an 1850 saltbox-style house and one of the city's oldest homes, which now serves as a visitor center.

We next set our sights on Balboa Park. At 1,200 acres, this is the largest urban cultural park in the nation, and it boasts more than a dozen museums, as well as performing arts venues, hiking trails and an abundance of well-tended gardens.

Our small group split up briefly here, as Olivia headed directly to the Museum of Photographic Arts. This museum houses more than 4,000 works and displays on history, aesthetic movement and how technology has changed over the years.

Charlotte and I headed to the Museum of Man to satisfy our interest in anthropology and archaeology. Like the majority of others in Balboa Park, the building itself is impressive. Constructed in the Spanish colonial and mission style, it was built for the 1915-1916 Panama-California Exposition. The Kumeyaay exhibit educated us about the indigenous people of Southern California, and included pottery and basketry. An exhibit about Egypt featured some artifacts more than 3,000 years old. A human mummy took center stage, but just as interesting were the sacred amulets, and the ushabtis, a kind of figurine representing servants, buried with an upper class person so he wouldn't have to personally do any work in the afterlife. There also was a mummified falcon on display.

We learned the hard way that when visiting Balboa, you need to arrive early, because the museums close by 5 p.m. We could have spent the day just touring the eight specialized gardens. One of the most popular is the Inez Grant Parker Memorial Rose Garden. Spread over its three acres are 2,500 rose bushes of nearly 200 varieties. Peak bloom season is the next two months, but there are some kinds of blooms through December.

Our next destination was Belmont Park, located on Mission Beach just a couple of miles from our resort. The park is a child's dream come true with amusement park rides, midway-style games, an arcade and a wave house, but it was the Great Dipper roller coaster we came to ride. This is one of the original roller coasters in California, built in 1925. At one time it was slated for demolition, but somehow it was totally restored and updated at a cost of $2.1 million, reopening in 1990. The coaster still has the charming look and feel of days of old with a gingerbread-style station house refurbished to its original splendor.

On our last evening, armed with a large stack of cut wood, fire starter and a complete smore kit, all from our resort's store, we built a roaring blaze in the fire pit on the beach outside our cottage. This not only satisfied a late-evening craving for sweets; it also provided a family time of laughter and love, to be long remembered. And that was sweeter, even, than smores.

Contact Deborah Wall at deborabus@aol.com.