San Diego: Padres vs. Mets

After our incredible 3 1/2 days in Disneyland, we got a Lyft from the Disneyland hotel to pick up our rental car at 9 AM for our drive down to San Diego.

We were only planning a couple days in San Diego, so we were going to try to cram as much in as we could. The drive from Anaheim to San Diego is about an hour and a half down the Pacific Coast Highway, and it was an absolutely beautiful drive.

Our hotel (the Double Tree in Mission Valley) was absolutely gorgeous! Our room wasn’t ready yet, but they had a coffee shop, so we grabbed a much-needed caffeine boost and grabbed a Lyft to Petco Park for a 1:05 PM game.

Now, I’ve grown up watching and loving baseball. We went to games as a family when I was a kid for many years. In college, I decided to resume the tradition with my dad and the 2 of us go to at least one Yankees game together every season. I have always thought it’d be cool to try to get to all 30 MLB stadiums in the country, though I’m not sure how likely it is that I’ll actually manage that.

Anyway, with that all in mind, I do try to fit in a major league baseball game on as many trips as possible, and being that this was my birthday trip, I’d basically adopted the mindset that I could do whatever I want. So we got tickets to see the Mets play the Padres at Petco Park, and I checked the 7th stadium off my list (though, 2 of the ones I’ve visited are no longer standing – Shea Stadium and the old Yankee Stadium – so I still have 25 stadiums to go).

Petco Park is beautiful! You don’t even feel like you’re in a stadium once you’ve entered because there’s so much outdoor, grassy space and it has such a laid back feel (very stereo-typically California).

In fact, when you enter the stadium, you still aren’t inside or under a roof of any kind, which is just so different to the New York stadiums.

We got ourselves some local beer and food for lunch and settled down into some pretty great seats to enjoy some baseball.

The stadium’s dessert game is on point, too, by the way. That’s a cookies ‘n cream cookie sandwich with cookies ‘n cream ice cream in the middle!

After the game (Padres lost) we walked 4 or 5 blocks from the stadium, toward the Gaslamp District, and got a Lyft back to our hotel. Our room was ready by then, so we got the suitcases from the rental car and settled in and unpacked a little. We hung around and relaxed a bit, and then changed for dinner.

We had reservations at a local restaurant (which I think may be a smallish chain in CA) that my co-worker recommended to us.

Gordon Biersch is everything my husband and I wish we had in a local restaurant / brew pub. It was right near our hotel, which is always a plus (not walking distance, but a short drive), and they had a really wide selection of beers they brew! We were in the kind of mood (as we often are on vacation) to just make a bunch of appetizers into our dinner. Plus, it was Sunday, and they do all-day happy hour on Sundays. So we ordered an absurd about of food and sat back, watched some baseball on the TVs, and just relaxed together, eating and drinking and chatting.