California coast trip, Day 1: From Tia Juana River to the Hotel Del

The longest journey, they say, begins with a single step. And just so you know, if your journey is an 1,100-mile coastal drive from to toe to top tip of California, those first steps may include a slog through the the dregs of the Tia Juana River, followed by a view of ice-skating in Coronado.

That’s how I started my 2009–at the southernmost end of California’s coast, at Border Field State Park, gazing south at Tijuana’s seaside bullring and trying to pick a path to the beach through the muck left by recent rain-fed flooding of the Tijuana River Valley. It was a good morning to start a big enterprise, chilly, with mist in the air. But I picked the wrong trail (pictured below) to the beach, ran into deep mud, and beat a strategic retreat.

Where to? Just a few miles up the road, through imperial Beach and up the Silver Strand (a.k.a. California 75). There stood the Hotel del Coronado, as it has since the 1880s. Once I’d found free parking nearby, it was just a quick hop to the bar for a $3.75 cup of coffee (better that than $375 for a room), which I could sip leisurely while watching ice-skaters circle the resort’s little temporary beachfront rink.

Maybe, having covered the sublime and the ridiculous in the first two hours, I have 10 thuddingly dull coastal days ahead of me. But I doubt it. We spend our first night at the Paradise Point Resort, and it’s looking pretty good, and pretty lively, and remarkably cheap. For a room that can go for $300 in summer, we’re paying $119.

And since I want my money’s worth, it’s time to join the family out by the warm kiddie pool.

– Christopher Reynolds, Los Angeles Times staff writer

[Top photo: Border Field State Park at the southern edge of San Diego County isn't looking especially pretty this week, thanks to rainfed flooding in the Tijuana River estuary area. But if you're driving the whole California coast, you have to start at the edge that touches Mexico.]

[Bottom photo: Since the 1880s, the Hotel del Coronado has been the grandest thing in its neighborhood. These days, management keeps up appearances (and rates) by inviting in novelties like this temporary ice-skating rink.]

Credit: Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times

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This entry was posted on Friday, January 2, 2009 at 11:50 am by Susan Derby and is filed under Baja California, California, Family & Kids, Hotels, Islands & Beaches, San Diego. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.