Wed 18th Feb: San Diego

We travel 170 miles to “Campland on the Bay" in San Diego without incident.

The following day we catch the bus to San Diego Old Town, which is a California State Park and consists of restored and reconstructed buildings dating mainly from the 1820’s to the 1870’s. The object of the park is to present a range of different living styles and capture something of the atmosphere of what life was like for residents of San Diego during that era. Naturally, parts of the town resemble the cowboy towns we remember from westerns, but the Park structures have a proper historical base rather than being simply a film set.

The building nearest in the above photo is the Racine and Laramie tobacco store, reconstructed faithfully as it was in 1869. Inside were all the appropriate products that gave it a truly authentic feel, including tobacco pipes of all qualities from many parts of the world.

There are too many buildings to describe in detail, so I’ll select a few, starting with the Wells Fargo History Museum. The exhibits contained a genuine 1867 state-of-the-art Concord stage coach that featured a sprung passenger compartment that could hold 9 travellers, with a further 9 on top. 

In 1857 the company launched the first trans-continental service, from St Louis to San Francisco. It must have been desperately uncomfortable although there was apparently a degree of acclimatisation to the motion sickness of the swaying carriage along its journey of 2,757 miles and 25 days.

The coach rolled along at between 5 and 12 miles per hour almost continuously with changes of horses (or mules) every 18 or so miles. I’ll never complain about Cambridgeshire buses again, even if one of the operators is, coincidentally, called Stagecoach!

An earlier and more primitive carriage, really a cart, was featured in the Stables Museum. The photo is below. This is a wooden carreta made in 1806 that reputedly carried a Spanish lady from San Francisco to San Diego, taking three months. It sported a weatherproof cover but no springs. The expression numb bum comes to mind.

The Stables Museum generally contained a wealth of beautifully preserved exhibits from the mid-19^th Century, like branding irons, an Indian feather headdress, patent medicines, a large variety of carts and carriages, etc. Just picking an example, here’s an exquisite, ornately embroidered saddle.

The earliest buildings in the Park date from the Mexican period, 1822 to 1846. These are made from adobe i.e. mud bricks. The most elaborate of these is the 1827 Casa de Estudillo, built by Jose Maria de Estudillio, a local administrator and dignitary. It’s a walled courtyard house that takes a splendid photo with the lady sitting in period costume in its pretty garden.

The cemetery reminds us of the tough life they faced in the 19^th century. Many died young from disease, and others violently in a manner that fits our image of the Wild West. 

The Park also contains an area of later dwellings, in the Heritage Park Victorian Village. These are from the 1880’s and 90’s, and represent the homes of the wealthier inhabitants, and fine homes they are too. You can’t help wondering if the house with the lookout tower belonged to the local fire-chief.

Towards the end of our meanderings, we pass a car park, and do a double-take. This car is totally decked out with Christmas decorations and articles. On the bonnet, too! The car bodywork is daubed with Christmas scenes and messages. Inside it’s totally full of Christmas baubles and articles, apart from the driver’s seat. It has to be Father Christmas on vacation. Surely it couldn’t be driven? But we actually saw it, impossibly, on the road the following day not far from our campsite, a good 5 miles from this car park.

It had to be a great day out: how often do you have a close encounter with the Wild West and Santa Claus in the same day.