I can’t believe it’s Thursday and our last day at the house already. Tomorrow we’ll move to Ocean Beach for the weekend. Time to wash laundry and blog.
On Monday I took a different route for my hike downtown, which was a bit better but not much. I decided that from now on I’d take the trolley and skip that part.
Anyway, I walked from Logan Heights to Petco Park and then into Gaslamp Quarter.
And then all the way up 5th to Balboa Park. Always be careful when I say that something’s in walking distance. Bring hiking shoes! 
There’s a 100 % vegan fast food joint called Evolution Fast Food on 5th/Quince where I had a wonderful mock chicken sandwich and a beet, carrot and orange juice for lunch. Look at the color!
They have outdoor seating, and I enjoyed the shady spot by the little fountain. 
Then on to Balboa Park.
As if I hadn’t walked enough already I hiked the Bridle trail where I took some close-up pictures of squirrels and lizards with my DSLR. I’ll post those as soon as I find the time to go through my photos.
Then I walked up to the fountain where I had a lemonade and listened to a jazz sax player while I waited for Eric.
Not much has changed at Balboa Park since my last visit way back in 2001, except that there’s free wifi in the park now. Free wifi! Woohoo!
When Eric arrived from the conference we took another small walk through the Japanese garden, cactus garden and the Spanish village until sunset.
Then we walked all the way back to Gaslamp Quarter for a well deserved dinner at Gourmet India. There are plenty of vegan choices and we both went for the bindi masala and tandoori naan.
I liked that the okra wasn’t cooked all squishy like so often in Indian restaurants. It still had a little bite and hopefully some vitamins left.
The restaurant shows Bollywood movies on the big screen (no sound, just captions) and with the check you get a complimentary Bombay Mix CD. Haven’t listened to it yet, but I bet it’s just my kind of music. Not. 
But a nice idea and a good way to remember the good time at their restaurant.
The original plan was to go to an Irish pub next to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, but when we left the restaurant we were already quite tired. No wonder if you take into account that it was already 5 a.m. back home in Germany.
So we only had a beer at the Hard Rock Café across the street. I was surprised that this Hard Rock Café actually played some hard rock. I can’t say the same thing about their locations in Berlin and Frankfurt.
They have some interesting memorabilia on display. I liked Chris Cornell’s guitar best.
Service was a bit slow that day, but the manager made up for it by quickly switching his role to bartender, running super hero style around the bar to rescue his thirsty guests.
A funny end of a really nice day.
According to my UP band I made 27,314 steps that day.