Balboa Park

Balboa Park is the nation’s largest urban park, and only Central Park has been around longer. The gorgeous Spanish Colonial and Art Deco buildings were built in 1915 for the California-Panama International Exposition. Today they house most of the city’s major museums (15) and eight botanical gardens. The San Diego Zoo is in Balboa Park. The park is huge and beautiful. We didn’t see the entire park, but we did visit several museums (Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego Museum of Art, San Diego Natural History Museum and the San Diego Model Railroad Museum) and the Botanical Garden and Lily Pond. We also want to go back and see the Air and Space Museum. The zoo we’ll save for another day all by itself.

We’re driving a Prius—thank you, Enterprise! It’s a great little car. We’re getting between 70-99 mpg. Gas prices here are very high, and in California you have to drive everywhere, so it’s fantastic. We’ve gone over 400 miles and we still have half a tank. The car is comfortable, the hatchback holds a ton of stuff, and it drives really well—very zippy and responsive. It’s so great to be riding along and see the display on the dash: “99.9 mpg.”