San Diego 9

Endless summer meets Cat in the Hat, craft beer and cosmopolitan fun

BY JACKIE BURRELL

With perfect weather and soft, sandy beaches that stretch for miles, San Diego is a year-round tourist draw.

This sunny city boasts a vibrant downtown and hip neighborhoods that thrum with chic eateries, craft breweries and appealing little boutiques. They’re all the more appealing in September, when the summer vacation crowds have evaporated, along with the possibility of “June gloom” fog.

It’s the perfect time to discover the spirit that most characterizes this fizzy cosmopolitan city — its insouciance. San Diego is a land of effortless cool, where even the most serious locations come with elements of playful whimsy that can evoke childlike wonder in visitors of any age.

A giant Cat in the Hat sculpture, for example, stands ready for selfies outside UC San Diego’s Geisel Library, which was named, of course, for the creator of Things One and Two and fish red and fish blue. The building may be filled with stressed-out students, but Dr. Seuss’s namesake resembles an extravagant mirrored mother ship about to take flight. The upper floors offer some of the best views in the city, and if you decide to stroll from the library heading east, you’ll be walking atop a 560foot tiled snake.

San Diego might be a cosmopolitan city, but it also embraces elements of playful whimsy and was ranked one of the nation’s most fun cities by WalletHub researchers.

Certainly, the city’s convention center bustles with busy business types, their delegate badges swinging wildly as they hustle along, briefcases in hand — except when the soaring building is filled with 130,000 Chewbaccas, Ming the Mercilesses and Targaryens. The comic book fans who launched San Diego’s epic Comic-Con 47 years ago have wrought something astonishing. Today, the nerdy convention fills not only this 460,000-square-foot exhibit hall every July for four days, but it’s so popular that Comic-Con will soon be a year-round attraction.

A Comic-Con Museum is scheduled to open in Balboa Park’s former sports-centric Hall of Champions in 2018, bringing a heady dose of pop culture and more than a few zombies to this city’s stunning hilltop museum hub. It will be a fun addition to a 1,200-acre cultural park whose Spanish Colonial Revival buildings, gardens and forests tempt visitors with 17 museums, the Old Globe theater and the San Diego Zoo, all of which follow a long history of whimsical decisions.

The park was actually the site of the 1915 Panama-California Exposition, whose dreams of being a world’s fair were dashed by San Francisco, when the city to the north nabbed the rights to host the official Panama-Pacific International Exposition. Undaunted by setbacks, San Diego city leaders made the insane-at-thetime decision to host a big bash anyway, building grand Spanish Colonial structures complete with landscaped gardens and peacocks, and powering up little electric basketlike cars. Then they invited the world to come play.

While San Francisco’s expo lasted nine months, San Diego’s not only ran a full two years, but eight countries opened pavilions in its second year, making it a true world’s fair. Many of the attractions we enjoy here now date back to those days, from the San Diego Zoo — initially populated by exotic animals left behind by the expo — to the Spreckels Organ Pavilion, the splendid lath-covered Botanical Building and the California Building, which now houses the Museum of Man.

Add the latter to your must-do list. Actually, add them all. The current Old Globe lineup ranges from Shakespeare’s star-crossed lovers to Seuss’ “Grinch,” and the organ pavilion hosts free concerts on Sunday afternoons. At the Museum of Man, exhibits range from ancient Mayan artifacts and Egyptian culture to the monsters under your bed. By the time you’ve explored manticores, forest demons and kaiju — and all the sneaky ways to defeat them — you’ll be ready for the Beerology exhibit.

Psst, don’t miss the cannibal exhibit across the plaza. It’s illuminating, immersive and, in true San Diego style, whimsical. There’s a life-size game of Operation in there. You’ll never look at a funny bone in quite the same way again.

3places To Grab A Beer

1 Stone Brewing

Founded in 1996, Stone is now one of the largest craft breweries in the country. Beer Advocate named it the “all-time top brewery on planet Earth” — not once but twice. Any way you slice those suds, the brewery, its hoppy beer and its beer gardens are remarkable. And you have two ways to experience them on your next SoCal jaunt: At San Diego’s Liberty Station, where the digs include a farm-to-table bistro, beer garden, bocce courts and an outdoor cinema; or in Escondido, where the brewery offers tours and guided tastings ($5) and the beer garden keeps the suds and bites flowing. Details: Open daily at Liberty Station in San Diego and at 1999 Citracado Parkway, Escondido; www.stonebrewing. com.

2 AleSmith

At 25,000 square feet, this is San Diego’s largest brewery tasting room — and it’s a local favorite. Sip your way through the full AleSmith lineup, from the Sublime Mexican Lager and X Extra Pale Ale to the brewery’s famous Speedway Stout. If you’re a Padres fan — or just love baseball — be sure to check out the brewery’s Tony Gwynn Museum, too. Then hoist a San Diego Pale Ale .394 and drink a toast to the Hall of Famer’s batting average.

Details: Open daily at 9990 AleSmith Court, San Diego; www.alesmith.com.

3 Ballast Point

What began as a group of homebrewers who liked to tinker around has become one of San Diego’s most beloved breweries with a lineup of interesting twists on the beer theme, from hoppy porters to an amber ale brewed with proprietary yeast. Ballast Point was named after the San Diego promontory where long-ago ship captains loaded ballast to weigh down their ships for the voyage around Cape Horn. Now the brewery pays homage to that sea-going past with labels made by local artist and surfing enthusiast, Paul Elder. Check out the art, sip some Manta Ray Double IPA or Wahoo White. Don’t miss the Victory at Sea Beer Floats served at the brewery’s Little Italy outpost.

Details: Open daily at several locations in San Diego, Temecula and beyond; www.ballastpoint.com.

A child chases a sea gull on Coronado Beach, which was ranked among Dr. Beach’s top sandy destinations on his annual best beaches list.

PLACES TO TAKE THE KIDS DON’T MISS

1 San Diego Zoo

This phenomenal zoo has always been a popular spot with tourists and locals alike. But if you’ve already crossed it off your vacation bucket list, un-cross it now. This summer the zoo celebrated its centennial by opening a $68 million Africa Rocks exhibit, the largest zoo expansion in its history. The first stage opened in July and included a South African beach environment with 20 African penguins. A dozen leopard sharks — whose diet does not include penguins — found a home in a 200,000-gallon seawater pool. By September, the zoo had unveiled its new Madagascar section, complete with lemurs. It’s a must-see.

Details: Tickets $42-$52 for a one-day pass. Open daily at 2920 Zoo Drive in Balboa Park, San Diego; www.sandiegozoo.org.

2 Birch Aquarium at Scripps

This educational museum and aquarium in La Jolla is the public face of UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography and there’s something here for everyone. The aquarium offers a peek at more than 60 sea-creature habitats along the Pacific Coast, from Mexico to the Pacific Northwest. Explore Tide Pool Plaza, and gawk at the leopard sharks and moray eels in the two-story, 70,000-gallon Giant Kelp Tank. You can even take a virtual ride aboard Scripps’ research vessel, the RV Sally Ride, and see what seafloor mapping is all about.

Details: Tickets are $14-$18.50. Open daily at 2300 Expedition Way, La Jolla; www.aquarium.ucsd.edu.

out some of the marine life in a tank at Birch Aquarium at Scripps in La Jolla.

Kaaboo

We’ve all been to jammed music festivals where the sheer volume of the crowds keeps you far from the stage and the amenities are ... inconducive to lingering.

Here’s something completely different — Del Mar’s Kaaboo is held each September on the bluffs just north of San Diego. The three-day festival is billed as “a weekend escape,” the promoters say, that includes rock concerts — the 2017 lineup headliners were P!nk and the Red Hot Chili Peppers — plus comedy shows, contemporary art, gourmet fare and a spa, complete with massages and old-school shaves. As for the name, it’s what you yell with happiness.

Details: Three-day passes start at $209, and VIP packages range from $799 to (gasp) $15,000. Sept. 14-16 at the Del Mar Racetrack; www.kaaboodelmar.com.