TheBanyanTree: Home Town Tourist

[Tom Smith]

A man with a camera looked around, then pointed toward the
Giant Dipper, a 1925-vintage wood-frame roller coaster in the
distance. <giantdipper.com/history.html>  A woman next to him
smiled as she folded a map.  Tourists, I thought.  Next they
gazed admiringly at custom 3-story residences with glass walls
facing the beach a short distance away.  As I passed by I
overheard bright conversation -in German.  Tourists, for sure.

Wow, I thought.. they traveled a very long way to see the
sights of my home town, the same sights I can see any day.  I
should feel lucky..  Now I nurse that lucky feeling by
exploring this town as a tourist, complete with camera and "San
Diego" embroidered on a baseball cap. I feel reasonably 
authentic; a tourist, according to the dictionary, is "a person
who travels for pleasure."  I just don't travel far.

Having spent most of my life in San Diego, numerous locations
have memories attached.  Memory Lanes are everywhere.  When I
look at the Giant Dipper those German tourists found, I re-
experience the teenage rides and friends, the cotton candy,
clatter and bravado.  Too often, memories are all that remain
when I revisit; one boyhood canyon footpath is now Genesse
Avenue.

Traveling new places, meeting new people and seeing the
night side of San Diego were side-effects of driving for Yellow
Cab.  As with rocks, there's amazing life in the cool
underside, out of the sun.  There were a large number of bars I
became familiar with, out of necessity.  I preferred the
relative quiet in front of the Greyhound Depot.  The biggest
tip ($20) in my brief cabbie career came out of that Greyhound
stand, from a grateful man whose wife was allowing him back
home.  Another night, another place, I arrived in the middle of
a domestic argument and had to ask the caller after a while if
she still needed a ride.  It seemed like a good thing for her
relationship at the time when the answer came out "I guess
not."  One especially clear night I transported some Marines
over the Coronado Bay Bridge.  Their young eyes seemed focused
somewhere beyond or maybe inside.  My eyes happened to be
seeing the city from the bridge at night the first time. 
Thousands of lights in windows doubled themselves in shimmers
on water.  It was spectacular.  
   
The most panoramic view of San Diego is at the end of a
penninsula called Point Loma, where the first European set foot
on the west coast of the United States. (Juan Cabrillo, in 1542)
It's quite close to Lindbergh Field, the main airport, which is 
where many travelers these days first set foot in town.  To
get to that overlook you have to drive through a gate in a
barbed wire fence and have your passage approved by a military
sentry guarding the entrance to the Fort Rosecrans Military
Reservation.  Some people may feel here for the first time that
they are in a country under military occupation.  Next you will
drive past 71 thousand well-kept veteran's graves to a Ranger
post, where it costs 5 dollars to proceed into a National Park
containing the Cabrillo National Monument and a classic
lighthouse.  Visitors are not allowed to stay past dark.  On
the side of the penninsula facing away from the city, down by
the water, are some artifacts few people know about -water
tanks once used as part of a Navy dolphin training program. 
Dolphins, trained elsewhere, are currently used to help protect
Navy ships and facilities vulnerable to swimmer attack. 
<http://usmilitary.about.com/cs/navydolphin.htm>

San Diego's probably most widely known tourist attractions all
have animals as their centerpiece: The World Famous San Diego
Zoo, The Wild Animal Park, and Sea World.  Exotic Animals (and
plants) require expensive care which has to be covered plus a
profit.  "Adult" (defined as 10yrs old and up) admission at Sea
World is $57.  It's $47 for ages 3 to 9.  For $150 extra Sea
World offers an interaction experience in a tank with their
civilian dolphins.  I haven't been to any of those facilities
in a very long time.  Though I'm uncomfortable in principle
with the exploitation of animals, I do see positive aspects to
those facilities. At my age, a zoo sounds like a more pleasant
place to live than a jungle.  

"Open space" and "Natural" parks are local treasures.  Among
them is Cowles Mountain, with the highest elevation within the
city limits at 1591 ft.  It's a strenuous steep winding climb
over lots of rocks, but I never fail to have pleasant
experiences, something amazing or inspiring to remember:
someone offering to share their binoculars, strangers passing
by saying "Good morning," dachshounds and a 90 year old woman
making the summit with enthusiasm, snippets of conversation
like "This is good for me" and I promised myself.."  

Nowadays I do most of my wandering on Sunday mornings and
mostly near the beach.  I like the sight of surfers of all ages
sharing the waves, fathers and mothers building sand castles
with their young children.  I like the ocean air, the sound of
waves and gulls, and the simplicity.  Complexity tends to
increase with distance from the water.  Nearby marinas are a
forest of masts sprouting from all kinds of boats with names
like Zero Gravity, Immigrant Song, Limbo. 

Tom

http://www.flickr.com/photos/9482738@N07/



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