Junk Thief Visits The City of Unnatural History

I am back from four days in San Diego, a place I've not visited in at least three years and have suffered not a second because of my absence.

My stay was at the incredibly odd Manchester Grand Hyatt at a productive conference but a conference all the same.

The waterfront and and convention center areas embody what I tried so hard to keep an open mind about but just could not help coming back to my long standing assessment: everything in San Diego is either bland, freshly dusted and sterile or smarmy, spooky and spiky.

Downtown has the feeling of having cropped up around 2003 with no sense of place or history.

The "historic" Gaslight District is pleasant, and I enjoyed sidewalk dining as folks from Omaha and Mobile milled by as the sun set. But it too feels much too quaint and pre-meditated. It has the first Urban Outfitters I've ever entered and was immediately greeted by clerks who asked if they could be of any help.

Despite having the nifty red trolley system to take you there, "Old Town" feels a lot like Branson on the Pacific. Even history feels manufactured here.

As in the past, Balboa Park proved to be a nice respite from Topeka on the Pacific, Blandiago or California Lite as many people call it.

I also enjoyed Balboa Park's desert gardens which I don't recall touring before. For the record, it was eight or nine degrees warmer in San Francisco while I was down south. But it's not just the weather that makes me glad to be back home. A little grit in the right place always makes me like California a bit more.