San Diego Two-Timer

To finish off a great summer, I went to San Diego not once, but twice within the same week... right before I had to head back up to Flagstaff for school.

Trip #1

For the first mini vacation, I explored the California coast with my boyfriend, Jonah. We found a coed hostel to stay in so we didn't have to impose on any of our California friends last minute. (Jonah is a spontaneous planner which can be rough for me sometimes since I'm such a mark-it-in-my-calendar-weeks-in-advance kind of girl. But don't worry, I'm learning to be flexible!)

The hostel we stayed in ended up being really nice... despite sharing a room with 7 other people. It's called HI San Diego Point Loma Hostel, and they have free breakfast and free surfboard rentals for their guests. Definitely staying there again and teaching myself how to surf!

While there, Jonah and I made good use of my Yelp app to find all the best taco places in San Diego. We also went to Mission Beach and Sunset Cliffs which are both on my list of favorite California places to visit.

To finish off the trip, we stopped by Universal Studios on our way back to Arizona to ride our favorite rides - Jurassic Park, the Mummy, and the new Harry Potter ride. We then rewarded ourselves with Butterbeer to top off the day. We also grabbed a donut from Voodoo donuts in Universal City (love the donuts, not super crazy about the name).

It was an amazing trip! Here are our pictures from it. (The ones of me were taken by Jonah since he's still having fun learning how to be a photographer like I talked about in an earlier post.)

Trip #2

My second trip out to San Diego was to visit one of my best friends, Carissa.

Carissa and I grew up seeing each other every once in a while when our families got together. Our dads are best friends who met at the Air Force Academy way back when. Within the last few years, we began to realize how similar we are (which makes sense because the men who raised us are also very similar). So now we visit each other often and catch up over Snapchat and text messages whenever we get the chance!

Carissa, like me, is a planner so she came up with a list of so many fun ideas while I was there for 2 days. We ended up only completing part of the list, which means I'll just have to go visit her again someday.

Within those 2 days, we ate smoothie bowls and Mexican food (at Miguel's which is super yummy), we went to the beach and watched seals, we hiked to a mini waterfall, we made pasta and cookies and had a girls' night, and did a ton of catching up! We also walked around Seaport Village (another favorite place of mine in California) right before I was dropped off at the airport.

It was another fun trip of exploring and adventuring, and this time I got to do it with a local who had some awesome insights. Thank you Carissa for showing me all your favorite places! Here are some of our pictures and memories from the trip. (The ones of me are taken by Carissa).