Sandy Eggo

Well, I'm not in Oz anymore.

Spent my first full day of vacation in San Diego on Sunday getting the big-picture view of the city from Rex.

It didn't take long for me to figure out why this urban area with a population of more than 2 million has been a magnet to so many people over the last decade.

The weather is spectacular even in the winter - upper 60s during the day and low 50s at night with mid to low humidity around the clock.

The scenery is beautiful. The city wraps around a curving bay and is crisscrossed by shallow canyons and rows of hills - imagine a less densely populated San Francisco.

There's a giant park (Balboa) near downtown with great Art Deco, Spanish-colonial-inspired buildings that were constructed for an exposition in 1936 but, today, house numerous museums.

We ended the day at Pacific Beach watching the sun set over the ocean.

We're traveling south to Tijuana on Wednesday - my first trip to Mexico! Other planned excursions will take us to Blacks Beach, a world-famous nude beach, and along the Sunrise Highway in the mountains of eastern San Diego County.