5 Things to See in San Diego Within 1.2 Miles of the Apartment My Son Stayed at in Jan 2024

On 10th January 2024, my son, Kyle, set off on a trip of a lifetime. He was going to swap university in cold, rainy Edinburgh for 6 months studying at San Diego State University, in sunny California!

On 11th January 2024 – one day later – he was hit by a car that ran a stop light and sped off, leaving him seriously injured and unable to attend any of his courses.

He was also left with over $100,000 of medical debt, because he didn’t have the correct travel insurance, but that’s a story for another time…

Because I had a valid ESTA, I was able to jump on the first available plane and fly over to help him. I then spent the better part of a month staying with him in his Airbnb apartment until he was well enough to return home for an operation and further medical care.

While there, he spent a lot of time sleeping, and I spent a lot of time with nothing much to do. San Diego is an incredible city, with countless things to see and experience, a vast array of delicious foods to eat, and all manner of other exciting stuff going on.

We had all been looking forward to hearing from Kyle about all these things, so when I went over, despite regularly being at a loose end, it didn’t feel right for me to go out and enjoy any of them. It wouldn’t be fair for me to come back all excited about a trip to the San Diego Zoo, for example, to tell him how amazing the monkeys were (assuming they have monkeys, I wouldn’t know) while he’s been lying immobile in a fixed leg brace, relying on painkillers to get through the day.

And so, instead of taking in the sights, smells, and sounds of San Diego, I never wandered more than a mile or so from the apartment we were staying at.

Here, then, are my top 5 things to see and do in San Diego within 1.2 miles of that apartment…

Ah, Ralphs. Sweet, sweet Ralphs. This place became my home away from home when I was in San Diego. Although, since I was already away from home, I suppose it was technically my home away from my home away from home.

Located just 0.6 miles from where we were staying on Shane Place, this sprawling supermarket had everything, from ludicrously calorie laden cake and pastries, to ludicrously calorie laden everything else.

There was also a fruit and vegetable section. Probably.

During my time in San Diego, I must have killed 20 hours or more just wandering aimlessly around the many, many aisles, marvelling at all the strange American food, and drawing in sharp intakes of breath at the prices.

Seriously, San Diego is an expensive place to live! But, lovely, wonderful Ralphs offers some great savings with the Ralphs card, which I signed up for on my second week there. Doing so opens you up to a relentless barage of money-saving deals and coupons, which are probably the only reason the entire experience didn’t bankrupt us.

I think the main reason why I love Ralphs so much, though, is this…

This photo is going to split readers of the blog into two camps – one that has just had its collective mind blown, and another wondering what the hell that orange stuff is.

Allow me to explain.

Irn Bru is a Scottish-made soft drink, which is beloved by the majority of Scottish people. It’s as Scottish as haggis, whisky, and shortbread, and difficult to get anywhere else, even just over the border in England.

I had never, in all my travels to the United States, ever found it anywhere. And here it was, on my first ever visit to Ralphs, like it had been sitting there patiently waiting for me to arrive.

But that’s not even the weirdest bit. Like I said, I spent a considerable amount of time wandering around Ralphs while we were in San Diego, literally going in there every day.

After that first visit, though, I never saw Irn Bru again. It was one and done. There one day, gone the next. I searched for it every time I was in, but couldn’t even find the space it had previously occupied. I asked staff about it, and they looked at me like I was talking a foreign language.

And yet, I saw it. It existed. For that brief, beautiful, all-too-fleeting moment, it was there.

Here’s a small selection of the other weird stuff I saw there. Had I known I’d be writing an in-depth blog article about it several months later, I’d have taken more.

I don’t know exactly what it is, and maybe it’s just me, but there’s something about the phrase ‘Dolly Parton’s Caramel Turtle’ that just feels utterly obscene.

So, that’s Ralphs, and a damn fine place it is. I hope all the many, many friends I made there – by which I mean the staff who were becoming increasingly concerned by my frequent appearances, and the nice old lady I helped gets things down from a high shelf for – are doing well.

Just a few minutes’ walk from Ralphs is the Starbucks on El Cajon Blvd. I spent several hours, usually early in the morning, drinking tea and eating muffins, while working on the twentieth DCI Jack Logan book. I sat just on the inside of that middle window pane, slightly to the left of the letter A.

Although, I’ll be honest, I didn’t notice a letter A there at the time. Then again, I wasn’t really looking for one.

I wish I had some fun stories to tell about this particular Starbucks but, let’s be honest, they’re all much of a muchness. I will say that the staff and I all had a lot of fun with them trying to understand my accent (mostly them) and we really made the most of the whole US tipping culture (again, mostly them.)

It was a great place for people watching, both inside and out. While sitting there minding my own business, I witnessed two young women having a fight, an older woman throwing an iced drink at her husband, and someone dropping a croissant.

OK, that last one wasn’t very interesting, but the paragraph really needed a third thing to round it off.

I also saw some top quality action happening outside. These included a man walking backwards, three people trying to ride on the same bike at the same time, and someone driving a replica of the A-Team van past at high speed.

Or maybe that’s just a van you can get in America, and any similarities to the one driven by Bosco ‘B.A.’ Baracus on the hit 1980s action adventure show are entirely coincidental.

I didn’t really take many photos of Starbucks, because that would have made me look weird. Here are the only two I have.

In case they’re not clear, one of those is some sort of pastry thing, which might be a croissant, but might be something else, I can’t remember. The other is a ridiculous pink drink which I believe was described in my first Robert Hoon novel as looking like ‘the contents of the Pink Panther’s ball sack.’ Bon Appétit!

“There’s something about the phrase ‘Dolly Parton’s Caramel Turtle’ that just feels utterly obscene.”

Less than half a mile from where we were staying (and on the way to Ralphs) was the College – Rolando Branch Library. I should point out here that, at no point during any of my visits were there an assortment of Star Wars characters milling around outside. Or inside, for that matter. I just found this photo on Google Images, because I didn’t take any of my own.

Now that’s cleared up, let me tell you about the library. Like all libraries all over the world, it’s a fantastic place. It has books! Lots and lots of lovely books!

The staff that I met were all extremely friendly, helpful, and seemed to love their jobs. I sat tucked away at the back a few times, working at one of the many freely available desks, and got chatting to a few different people working nearby, only one of which glowered at me like he wished me harm.

I also whiled away an hour or two browsing the bookshelves, keeping my eyes open to see if they had any of the 200+ books that I’ve written over the years, across a whole range of genres.

They didn’t.

They did have graphic novels based on episodes of The Twilight Zone, though, so I’ll let them off.

While I was there, the library was also running an exhibition that I recall at the time thinking was really impressive, but I can’t, for the life of me, remember what it was. Sorry.

One thing I forgot to mention about the trip to San Diego. While we were there, the city was hit by a thousand year storm. Thankfully, that isn’t as bad as it sounds, and it’s not a storm that lasts a thousand years which would, quite frankly, have been cataclysmic for a city used to all year round sunshine, and where all the roofs are flat.

Instead, it’s a storm of such severity that it only happens once every thousand years. Quite how they know that, I have no idea, but that’s what everyone on the radio kept saying. We also got an emergency alert about it in the early hours of the morning, the earsplitting sound of which almost gave me a bloody heart attack.

Anyway, I was walking to the pharmacist later that afternoon to pick up a prescription for Kyle (see next entry), when the heavens opened again. It was lashing down and completely impossible to walk in, even for a guy whose home town was once crowned ‘The Wettest Place in Europe’ three years in a row.

I started running blindly, rain droplets striking me in the face like tiny bullets, only made of water instead of whatever bullets are made from. Lead? Or is that a myth?

That’s something for you to find out.

My hair was matted to my head. My shirt was transparent. My sunglasses were laughably pointless. Rivers ran along the pavements – or ‘sidewalks’ if you want to get all local about it – and children were swept from their parents’ arms.

Possibly, although I didn’t actually see that last bit happening. But it absolutely could have.

Just as I was starting to think my time had come, and that all hope was lost, there, like an oasis in the desert, only the exact opposite, I suppose, given that everything was under several inches of water, was a Jersey Mike’s Subs.

If you’re unfamiliar with Jersey Mike’s Subs, then the easiest (and laziest) comparison I can make is that it’s a bit like Subway, but rather than all the ingredients being left to dry out in containers all day long, getting dry and sad, they’re prepared fresh right before your eyes.

We first encountered a Jersey Mike’s in Orlando, while desperately trying to avoid going back to the theme parks for a few hours, and Fiona in particular fell in love with it. The rest of us are more Firehouse Subs fans (seriously, if you haven’t tried it, DO IT!) but Fiona really appreciated the fresh salad vegetables, and the ability to ask for the meat to be cut reeeeally thinly, so she can pretend to herself that she’s a vegetarian while still enjoying the taste of sweet, delicious ham.

So, not only did the place offer a respite from the rain and decent quality fare, it also reminded me of happier times, when I was on a proper family holiday instead of an injury-related mission of mercy, and when a flood of Biblical proportions wasn’t threatening to wipe the city I was in off the face of the Earth.

I went in, ordered a sub, and then was asked if I wanted it ‘Mike’s way.’ I had absolutely no idea what way Mike took his subs, so I said yes.

Then, when the guy serving me started to pile on lettuce and tomato, I told him that, on reflection, I didn’t want it Mike’s way because, unlike Mike, I have the tastebuds of a five-year-old child.

Instead, I got what I’ll be the first to admit looks like the most boring photograph of any foodstuff ever taken, but which I can assure you was bloody lovely. What was in it? No idea. It was months ago, and I can barely remember what I ate today. But, it was great.

Then, when I got out, the rain had stopped, and the sun had come out to the extent that the pavements and/or sidewalks had all dried up.

Incidentally, I sent that photo above to Fiona to let her know that I was having lunch in Jersey Mike’s, and she called me some very bad names.

You wouldn’t think a fairly run-down CVS Pharmacy would make a Top 5 list of things to do anywhere, but here we are. It is what it is, folks.

I was actually at this pharmacy – located 1.2 miles from where we were staying – three times in total, all for the same prescription which they twice assured me would be ready the next day and wasn’t.

Of all the places on this list, this was the one I felt I was most likely to be murdered in. You might not think that sounds like high praise and you’re right. It isn’t.

So, why is it on the list when there are so many other places I could have added, instead? Maybe the Trader Joe’s near SDSU, or the 7-Eleven near SDSU, or the McDonald’s near SDSU?

The answer is simple, dear reader. I didn’t go into any of those.

I did, however, go into this CVS Pharmacy (three times). And, on one of those occasions, I stumbled upon the thing that qualifies it to be here on this list.

A big ol’ box of Cadbury’s Creme Eggs!

Yes, just like Ralphs, with its there-and-gone Irn Bru, CVS offered a little taste of home when I’ve never felt farther away from it. I ended up buying six of these for Kyle and I to eat over the next few days.

However, after trying one, we agreed the chocolate tasted horrible, and the others remained uneaten until he was finally well enough to fly home in February.

Still, a fun find, though, and for the novelty alone, it was almost worth being repeatedly shouted at by the pharmacist assistant that she couldn’t understand what I was saying.

Oh, and then on the way back to the apartment, I passed the car in the photo below, and for the second time that day was convinced I was about to be brutally murdered. And possibly eaten.

So, there we have it. Should you ever find yourself near Shane Place in San Diego for an extended period of time, those are some of the highlights you can look forward to.

You could, of course, always venture into San Diego proper, where I’m reliably informed there are all sorts of fun and exciting things to do. If you decide to go that route instead of aimlessly milling around in a supermarket for hours at a time, then check out the official San Diego travel guide.