San Diego, California

I lived in San Diego for three years. I have moved away since, but I still go back from time to time, and every trip starts the same way: the minute I step out of the airport, the smell of San Diego. I could not tell you what it is, and I have never tried to find out. I just like it. When the smell shows up, I know I have arrived.

A man in a hat above the stairs at the San Diego airport gates

Traffic cones on the airport curb in the midday sun

Same again this time: the Alila in Carlsbad, up on the bluff. The geography here is simple, a lagoon on one side, the beach on the other, the 101 threading between them, and most of what the town does happens between those three things. Sit by the room window for a while and it files past: pelicans in a line along the bluff, cars on the highway heading for the beach, people on the beach heading for the water. What this town is about, you can pretty much work out from one window.

Some things are fixed. Every trip back includes the Taco Stand, as if the trip would not count without it. Gelato after; the wafer said Buon Appetito. Fair enough.

Tacos on paper plates at the counter of the Taco Stand

A gelato cone with a wafer that says Buon Appetito

It was a Friday afternoon, and the town treated it like a Sunday.

A musician playing guitar on the sidewalk corner

A girl with her phone at a café table on the sidewalk

Toward evening, down to the water.

Girls at the rail of the wooden beach overlook

We stayed for the sunset. So did everyone else.

The sun setting into the Pacific past the house on the bluff

It was a beautiful evening. Nobody used it for anything.

By the time we walked back, it was properly night.

Night falling on the coast, the gate lights on

Two chairs on the terrace at night, the coast in lights

One day we drove into the city. Passing the street where I lived for three years, I stopped the car; there was nothing to do there, I just wanted to walk it once more. It is still nice. Then Balboa Park.

The street I lived on for three years

Kids at the big fountain in Balboa Park

In 2023, when I was looking for a new job, the gliderport was one of my favorite places: drive over in the evening, watch the sun go down from the cliff, sometimes take the little climb partway down. This time it was cloudy, so there was no sunset to wait for. People walked out to the edge and looked at the silver water anyway. I did too. I still like it.