Day Eighteen - El Cajon, Coronado

A day with Genie

After a great night's sleep and no schedule to keep, we enjoyed a great day with my cousin Gene.  (By the way, here in El Cajon, California, we are in Pacific Daylight Savings Time.  Our camera, however, thinks it's Eastern Daylight Time.  So if you're really looking at the time stamps, they're three hours off.)

Beyond Gene's back fence in El Cajon.  Saw a roadrunner there today!

Inside the back patio.

Genie suggested we visit the Hotel Del.  I wasn't aware at first that she meant the Hotel Del Coronado, one of the more famous venues of the gilded age, and one of the few survivors into modern times.

Entering the Coronado Bridge.

 

From San Diego...

...to Coronado.

 

Gene at the wheel; how nice not to drive today

Mary Frances was happy not to have me driving today, too.

 

Mary Frances and Genie holding up a tree in Coronado.

At the Hotel Del Coronado


The Hotel Del Coronado has a long history, from the Victorian era to the present.  Most similar hotels went out of business in the 1930's but this hotel managed to survive, thanks to the concentration of military bases in the area.  It was growing pretty seedy by the 1950's, but the filming of the movie Some Like it Hot raised interest in the old hotel.  New owners would begin restoration in the 1960's, and today it is a jewel, and it is expensive!

The Hotel Del Coronado

At the Hotel Del Coronado

Mary Frances and Genie at the Hotel Del Coronado

 

The Hotel Del Coronado

The Hotel Del Coronado

  Back to El Cajon

Back across the Coronado Bridge to San Diego.

 

A view of the countryside from El Cajon.

 

Some large elderly gentleman near the cliff.

Genie sitting with the old gent.

Genie and Mary Frances

A terrific lunch at Brigantine restaurant, followed by a lovely afternoon and evening at Gene's condo.  And Father's day greetings from my kids, my granddaughter and my son-in-law.  A great day.