Sunday 27 January 2013

San Diego Quilt Shops And A Visit To Old Town

After a rainy Friday, the first thing I did Saturday morning was to look out our  bedroom window at the sky to see what the weather held in store for us.  It looked good even though there were still lots of clouds hovering about as there seemed to be just as much blue sky.  Then, I remembered we were off to San Diego anyway.

The morning sky looked much, much better Saturday  morningIMG_0427

San Diego is renowned for its tremendous climate of mostly sunshine and warm weather.  That hasn’t been our experience with San Diego though.  In fact, over the last six years we’ve made 4 day trips to the city and 2 have been picture perfect while the other 2 were just awful as we hit torrential rains.  So, Saturday was going to be the tie breaker – would we get sunshine or rain?

Sun or rain didn’t matter to the Mad Quilters – inside was fine!IMG_0430

We left the Sands just before 9am and by the time we made the turn onto I-15 heading south to San Diego we hit our first bout of rain.  My immediate thought was “oh, oh, here we go again”!  It rained off and on all the way to our first stop the Country Loft Quilt Shop in La Mesa a San Diego suburb.  The quilters wanted 90 minutes at this shop so I quickly  took off with Molly and Rylie and headed for San Diego’s Old Town District just 15 minutes away.

San Diego’s Old Town has too many stores like this, and ……2013-01-26

I was lucky because by the time I parked in Old Town, the rain had stopped and the skies started to clear.  As far as Old Town goes it is kind of tacky but there are some great old original buildings still standing and there does seem to be a lot of good restaurants too.  Still, it is a bit of a tourist trap with lots of the usual attractions that I think detract from the overall ambience of Old Town.

Not enough beautiful original structures like this Catholic ChurchIMG_0454

Still, there are enough old buildings and examples of Spanish architecture to make a visit to Old Town worthwhile – and, it’s free!  I walked around the Old Town area for about an hour and really enjoyed it especially the warm sunshine. 

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With my time at Old Town all used up, I headed back to The Country Loft to pick up Paulette, Claire and Judy.  The timing was perfect as they were just leaving the store with shopping bags and packages under their arms.  We had one more favourite quilt shop to visit and it was in Vista which was just off of I-15 on the way back to Desert Hot Springs.

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Arriving at the Fat Quarters Quilt Shop in Vista, Paulette ran inside and came back out saying this was a good one – another 90 minute stop.  I decided to put the seat back for a while and have a bit of a siesta with the muttzo’s.  That worked for about 30 minutes and then I took Molly and Rylie for a walk around the neighbourhood.

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Once again, the quilt shoppers had a bit of a bonanza as they said this store was fantastic.  With that, I put my chauffeur’s hat back on and headed north on I-15.  That is when the weather turned a bit ugly with heavy rain, dark gloomy clouds and even fog.  I’d have to say my rating for San Diego yesterday was 50-50 so the weather score is still a tie – 2 good, 2 bad plus a tie.

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We arrived back at the Sands a little after 4pm just in time to take Molly and Rylie to the dog park for a well-deserved run with their friends.  Again, last night after dinner, we watched another movie on Netflix.  It was another busy day Saturday but I think we’re going to be slowing things down for Claire’s last 2 days here in Palm Springs.  We plan to do some local sight-seeing on Sunday.

Have a great Sunday, and thanks again for visiting!

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