Once it finally dawned on early man to stand on two legs and begin walking where he needed to go – there grew almost immediately a desire to grow wings and fly, instead. Not long thereafter, Torrey Pines Gliderport Flight School began operations, thereby fulfilling a need burning within the breast of humankind for literally thousands of years.
San Diego’s aviation destination of choice since 1928, Torrey Pines Gliderport has been giving our fine feathered friends a run for their money since the flight school began offering San Diegans the opportunity to soar like eagles in 1997. Once you experience the sensation of leaping from the breathtaking launch area overlooking the La Jolla Shores, off the edge of the cliff, straight out into the seeming endless, majestic panorama – your wings effortlessly holding you aloft – you’ll forever know what Icarus had in mind and wonder why you ever bothered traveling any other way.
The flight school employs a half dozen instructors that are ready to fulfill all your hang gliding, paragliding, and sailplane needs. The lessons are available in up to 10 different languages (should you need this), and the instructors will fly tandem with you until you’re ready, willing, and able to go it alone. With more than 35,000 accident-free tandem flights in the last ten years and tougher certification standards than required by even the United States Hang Gliding (Paragliding) Association itself, you are sure to be provided skills to last a lifetime. They are the top-ranked school in the United States, so what are you waiting for? Glide on over!
For the short-sighted among us without our own hang gliding gear – or if you’ve left it at mom’s – TPG flight School has all the new and used equipment, certification programs, special clinics, books, videos, and assorted accessories to satisfy even the fussiest of air sport enthusiasts. And there’s no need to outfit oneself merely to learn – they carry equipment for the student just beginning to get his or her feet wet, figuratively speaking.
Open year-round, seven days a week, Torrey Pines Gliderport is the place to let it all hang out!
Feeling the need to get your sea and sand on? Then Mission Beach is the place you want to go. With miles of continuous boardwalk running north from Ocean Beach to and beyond Pacific Beach along the Southern California coast, the beach known for the giant roller coaster ride has almost as many attractions as an amusement park. Ask not "what's there to do there besides swim?" but rather: "what don't they do down on Mission Beach?"
Care to shop? You can buy your swimwear, t-shirt, towels, and tanning lotion at Gone Bananas Swimwear, or right across the boardwalk at the Wings Swimwear Store #101, while cute-girl shopping goes on relentlessly at The Basement.
If you've forgotten your board at the office, try Emerald City Surf and Sport or Liquid Foundation Surfboards. They'll sell you all the long or short boards you need to begin your professional career. You say you don't already know how to surf? Impossible! That's why there's Endless Summer – an official surf camp for the City of San Diego. They'll rent you a board, teach you to surf, provide you the latest surf conditions – even congratulate you when you win your first competition. They do it all! You can test your new-found skills "surfing" the artificial wave machine at Mission Beach's famous WaveHouse.
Of course if you're not quite ready to hang ten just yet, why not surf the boardwalk instead? Try hanging two, four, or eight with the bike, skateboard, or rollerblades available at Cheap Rentals.
Now since all this activity is sure to work up an appetite, you'll want to remember to bring your burgers, buns, and charcoal briquettes to the BBQ containers the city provides (on a first come, first served basis, of course). Not that you have to cook for yourself, of course. At Mission Beach?!?! You'd never begin to run out of places to get your food and beverage on if you tried: Cane's Bar & Grill serves food and beer all day and live bands (and more beer) all night; Saska's Steak & Seafood's got your surf and turf, while Mission Bar-B-Que…well, you can guess their specialty. And there are more burger joints and taco stands than you can shake a burrito at.
You only think you're having fun now! Get yourself down to Mission Beach and find out where it's really happening – and don't forget to park in the public lot!
The San Diego street fair scene is a popular one, boasting a calendar as full and as robust as can be imagined, given the world's most perfect climate. Framing the season with both pre-Memorial Day and post-Labor Day events are fairs sponsored by the Adams Avenue Business Association featuring as many arts, crafts, and food vendors, performances stages, and happy, smiling patrons as eight blocks of Adams Avenue can contain.
The last weekend of September (the 29th & 30th) bids summer a final, rockin' farewell with the somewhat less adventurously named Adams Avenue Street Fair. The fair will provide copious amounts of music…with as many as 75 bands set to grace the stages this year. Throw free admission into the mix and there's just no excuse not to take part in the festivities along with upwards of 100,000 revelers sharing in the fun over the course of the 2-day event. Giant carnival rides and assorted children's activities are available for a family-oriented experience, while some three hundred vendors – supplemented by three beer gardens, cater to the kind of powerful thirst anyone is liable to cultivate while keeping up with the sounds of the rock, blues, funk, swing, reggae, and soul outfits spread over the Fair's six different stages.
In addition to the grilled sausage and gyro merchants, there is always an eclectic array of local businesses with booths at the Adams Avenue Street Fair. Morning shower not all it should be? The folks from Culligan Water Filters will be there just waiting for you to pay them a visit; beautiful skin is yours for asking at the L'Bel Paris booth; while the vintners from PRP Wine already have something fermenting in a bottle waiting for you to take back home with you for immediate uncorking.
Artists and art dealers from all over the region come to the Adams Avenue Street Fair to display their talents and the talents of those from as far away as Bali, Morocco, East Africa, and Southeast Asia over the course of the two day event.
And if all that were not enough, adding to the excitement of this Fall's 26th annual Fair will be the raffle of a Martin D-16GT guitar (value: $1,350) from the Hawley Boulevard Blues Stage on Sunday, September 30th at five o'clock: the proceeds going to benefit the Fair itself. Raffle tickets are $3 each (4 for $10) and are available at over a dozen San Diego locations (see The Adams Avenue Street Fair website for a list of locations).
Long an enclave for area aesthetes, Ray Street plays host to a gathering of the artistic, the inspired, the imaginative, and the merely curious eager to rub elbows with the creative element in this nocturnal celebration. Convened on the 2nd Saturday of each month in San Diego’s North Park neighborhood, and located between University Avenue and North Park Way, the PM gallery walk takes place between the hours of 6 PM and 10 PM. It affords access to as many as a dozen venues with live entertainment, food vendors, and even finger food and glasses of wine made available in galleries themselves (in exchange for a small donation).
Participating galleries include: Clay Artists of San Diego Gallery; The Arts & Entertainment Center; Warp 9 Imaging; Andrea Rushing Fine Arts; John Stewart Studies; Sharp Gallery; Planet Rooth Studios; The Rubber Rose; 4 Walls Gallery; Expressive Art Institute; Gallery 3060; ART Produce Gallery; and Gallery 504.
In addition to the galleries, there are those establishments on the surrounding streets whose doors remain open later on Ray at Night nights. Dessert and coffee after the walk? How about Clare de Lune or Heaven Sent Desserts? What about dinner? Try Ranchos Cocina, Old Word Restaurant, or Lumber Jack Grille.
Feeling the need to get your nature on or stick it to the man - or how about both? The Sierra Club is open during Ray at Night to fulfill your every environmentally friendly need, while The Controversial Bookstore has what ails rabble rouser in all of us. Fight the Power!
But Ray at Night is really about the galleries and it is the art and the artists that will keep you coming back - many locals make the pilgrimage all twelve times each year and you will be tempted to as well once you too have caught a little bit of the spirit and the joyous celebration that is Ray at Night.
Feeling the need to get your sea and sand on? Then Mission Beach is the place you want to go. With miles of continuous boardwalk running north from Ocean Beach to and beyond Pacific Beach along the Southern California coast, the beach known for the giant roller coaster ride has almost as many attractions as an amusement park. Ask not "what's there to do there besides swim?" but rather: "what don't they do down on Mission Beach?"
The San Diego street fair scene is a popular one, boasting a calendar as full and as robust as can be imagined, given the world's most perfect climate. Framing the season with both pre-Memorial Day and post-Labor Day events are fairs sponsored by the Adams Avenue Business Association featuring as many arts, crafts, and food vendors, performances stages, and happy, smiling patrons as eight blocks of Adams Avenue can contain.
Long an enclave for area aesthetes, Ray Street plays host to a gathering of the artistic, the inspired, the imaginative, and the merely curious eager to rub elbows with the creative element in this nocturnal celebration. Convened on the 2nd Saturday of each month in San Diego’s North Park neighborhood, and located between University Avenue and North Park Way, the PM gallery walk takes place between the hours of 6 PM and 10 PM. It affords access to as many as a dozen venues with live entertainment, food vendors, and even finger food and glasses of wine made available in galleries themselves (in exchange for a small donation).