SAN DIEGO - Ahh, our destination. I had finally arrived.

After a six-hour drive down a long, straight, barren road - which had nothing to distract my boredom except for unexciting roadway towns like Yuma and Gila Bend - I was in San Diego.

San Diego, the land of sun, fun, sand, surf and oh - fish tacos.

I had previously reserved a room at the Plaza International in El Cajon, Calif. It was a decent hotel, but let me make a suggestion - if you go to San Diego, try to stay within walking distance of the beach. If you do not, you won't find much difference b etween San Diego and Tucson. After all, the reason to go to a getaway is to simply get away from the familiar.

Since I was staying in El Cajon, to get to the beach I trekked down Interstate 8, which has such evenly spaced large bumps, it seems to give a continuous note, like those produced by an opera singer's voice.

My first night in San Diego was a Saturday, so I sampled the numerous clubs in Pacific Beach, which was a pretty good time. Probably the best two clubs were Tremors, which was a dance club that played a lot of hip-hop, and Emerald City, which was very sim ilar to The Cage in Tucson - although with less atmosphere and space.

I then ventured down Mission to a couple of interesting, warm and non-air-conditioned, beach-side dive bars, across the street from the Belmont roller coaster (the same one featured in a "Leave It to Beaver" episode), called Coasters (how appropriate) and the Beach Club.

At Coasters, you can purchase drink coasters at a quantity price and exchange them for drinks. If you get to the Beach Club, you may be lucky enough to sit next to a guy wearing white fur chaps and chair-dancing with his skateboard under his feet. I assum e that this is the normal Beach Club clientele.

The next day, after going to and from El Cajon on the "opera-like" highway (Interstate 8), I went to Ocean Beach, where I happened upon the Ocean Beach Street Fair on Newport. It appeared to be a carbon copy of the Fourth Avenue Street Fair. In fact, I ev en recognized a couple of pan flute musicians.

It is amazing how many parallels there are between Tucson and San Diego. San Diego is like Tucson with freeways and a beach.

Newport ends at the beach, and in the distance, right around the Ocean Beach pier, I could see decent-sized waves. Not Australian or South African waves, but very surfable waves for San Diego. Hence, there were dozens of surfers riding waves in a dangerou sly tight squeeze between the pier supports. Being the shutter-snapping fool that I am, this consumed me for the next couple of hours, and if you enjoy the beach or surfing, I would recommend this spot.

After a huge (colossal), tasty burger at HoDads in Newport, which I would definitely recommend to you carnivores, I went to Mission Beach.

I hung out on the sand in a place far away from the thousands of flies buzzing around the beach's garbage cans. As the sun began to set, I watched and listened to the waves, and I thought to myself, "Ahh, this is my destination. This is San Diego."

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Wildcat Weblink: San Diego

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