A tale of two San Diegos

This is either a tale of two cities, or a story about one city with two personalities. (Keep in mind that the following photos were taken within a 60-minute period of time this morning...)

I woke up to the sound of rain on the hotel windows.

By the time I walked downstairs for a cup of coffee, the day looked like this:

View of sunny skies over downtown San Diego

"Great! The storm is over!" I thought to myself... I pulled on my workout clothes, grabbed my camera, and headed out for a nice long walk.

Within minutes, the sky turned dark, the heavens opened up, and I was being pelted by stinging hail!

Hiding from the hail (round 2) in a bus shelter

I am proud to say that, while I considered retreating to the hotel gym, I decided to tough it out. I hid next to a tree hoping that the 30 mph winds wouldn't topple the tree onto me. (What a horrible travel story that would be!) And the sun reappeared a few minutes later.

Beginning of the MLK park in San Diego

I walked a good 4 miles, stopping to take the occasional photo and dodging the occasional sprinkle of rain and gust of wind.

Marina in downtown San Diego

With about half a mile left to go back to my hotel, thick clouds rolled in and the wind picked up again. I started to run, but wasn't quite fast enough. Wind-driven hail pelted me sideways.

My realization of the day: hail hurts!

And... of course... as soon as I was safely back at my hotel, the sun came out again.

I gave the crazy weather a couple of hours to sort itself out, and headed out for an evening run with Hubby "hash-run" style... We ran through my old neighborhood, stopped for a glass of wine mid-run (hashing has taught me that I can, surprisingly, have a beverage then keep running), and sprinted back to the hotel.

As we were running back, we caught a brilliant sunset over the bay. Those clouds are really pretty when they're not spitting hail!

I'm here (mostly) for work... but today's wine-fueled run felt like a vacation.