California - San Diego, Oldtown

Our second week in California we spent in San Diego. We stayed in the same hotel as Kathy and Bruce and played some cards and ate a few meals with them but, by and large, we had different agendas. Bruce had spent a number of months in Ocean Beach (OB) when he was younger and wanted to see his old haunts and catch up with friends. George and I just wanted to do the tourist thing.

The first day there we explored Oldtown. We were to find ourselves there most days after that as it was a great place to eat and drink and it was our nearest hub for the transit system.
Link: http://www.oldtownsandiego.org/

Oldtown is an area of the city that is a State Park. The buildings are all of a period early in San Diego's history and they are an interesting combination of museums, retail stores and restaurants. Sometimes all in the same building. For instance this is the outside of the Wells Fargo Office

This is the inside

There were lots of displays about how Wells Fargo was formed, maps of routes, old documents and pictures. In short, a museum. However it was also a working Wells Fargo Bank.
The restaurants and retail stores were all beautifully appointed and legitimately historic buildings.

A restaurant in Oldtown

The hotel, which had a fabulous restaurant inside

We spent a great deal of time inside the Livery Stables as there were some fascinating displays regarding mule and oxen trains and some of the land barons of the area.

A mule train wagon from above

I ended the day there by doing a quick sketch of this church while standing in the sun.