Petco Park: You stay classy, San Diego

Miami Marlins 13, San Diego Padres 4 Ben's pregame pick: Padres Pick record 2-7 Nick's pregame pick: Padres Pick record: 5-4 Nate's pregame pick: Marlins Pick record: 3-3

Date: June 13, 2016 Overall trip rating: 8.9  Number of total trips to In-And-Out Burger: Three (and counting) Home run balls touched during batting practice: One.

Let the adventure begin

Settle in. Ron Burgundy's home city of San Diego had a lot for us to explore, and when it was all said and done, we barley scratched the surface of the city's potential.

Leaving Anaheim en route to San Diego, we ran into a familiar scene: traffic. When we finally arrived, we tried another West Coast fast food chain, Del Taco. It wasn’t too bad for the price.



Our hotel was across the street from San Diego Bay, which overlooks Coronado. One of the first things we noticed was the beautifully mild 70-degree weather. It was almost too perfect. Oh, and our balcony looked out over a commons area, where a wedding was being held. We peaked through the curtains to watch some of it. Don't worry, she said "I do."

We had two days before the Padres game, so we had planned to visit a few tourist sites during our off days. The first was the USS Midway.

The former war ship is now a museum documenting the life of a crew member during the time the ship was in operation. The cost wasn’t much, and we were told if we didn’t finish seeing all we wanted to see, we could have our ticket validated and come back the next day.

The whole tour is self guided, as we were given some headphones and a device containing the audio files corresponding with the numbered attraction you were looking at. The tour took you through the crew’s living quarters and control rooms.

There were many jets on the flight deck of the massive ship. Some areas featured former pilots and crew members giving presentations on what it was like working on the ship. For every jet, there was an audio file available describing it and what it was primarily used for.

On the main deck, we hopped in a flight simulator — this was was much more tame than the others offered. The others spun the passenger upside-down, but they were closing as we walked up to them. Even for being easier than the others, there was still some dizziness felt by two of us.

We didn’t get to see all of the ship before it was closing time, but it was still quite an experience and well worth the price of admission.

Being so close to the ocean, we wanted to go to a sea food restaurant for dinner. There was a pretty fancy place called Brigantine Fresh Fish and Oyster Bar close to our hotel, so we decided to give it a try. We knew this dinner was going to cost a pretty penny, but we were okay with paying a little extra for one of the nights we were in San Diego.

We went big, ordering Piña coladas, rock oysters, shrimp stuffed prawn, calamari and king crab legs. It was a very impressive spread and it tasted great.

We went back to the hotel and took a walk around the bay to help our full stomachs feel a little lighter. We had plans to go to the San Diego Zoo's Safari Park the next day, so we turned in for the night.

The Safari Park was about half an hour from our hotel. Upon arrival, we purchased the two-park pass — which gets you into both the Safari Park and the San Diego Zoo. You could pay a little extra for a three-park pass which included Sea World, but we didn't think we would have enough time for all three; and we were right.

We walked around for a bit before going on the African safari tour, which was included with the price of admission. They also offered more detailed tours, so we also bought an Asian safari tour. We rode in carts for both tours. The additional tours for purchase are smaller groups and are more detailed, and both tour guides we had were knowledgeable and interacted with those on the tour.

 Note for adults with children: If zoos are not your thing and your just there for the kiddos, there are some nice view points overlooking the park where you can relax for a bit, even grab a beer or margarita. Or two.

We spent several hours at the park, and we were pretty beat by the end of our tour of Asia. We elected to go back to the hotel and start plotting dinner plans. But on the way back, we stopped at a farmer's market on the side of the highway. We got some fruit and beef, buffalo and ostrich jerky.

For dinner, we decided to try finding a place to eat at Ocean Beach. We were excited to try Hodad's, a hamburger place that was suggested to us. The suggestion was instantly validated when there was a line that stretched to the end of the block to get in. We were sad to have to pass it up, but it all worked out as we discovered the Newport Pizza & Ale House.

We started by ordering a calzone each, but the cook quickly saved us from making a big mistake. We were expecting a small, personal calzone, but these were huge. She said one and maybe a half order of cheesy bread would feed the three of us, and even that was too much for us to eat.

The cheesy bread was as big as another pizza and was topped with delicious bacon and served with marinara. The calzone can be customized anyway you want, and it too was amazing. We all also had a new beer — to us anyway — by New Belgium: Salted Caramel Brownie Brown Ale. Also great.

The Ocean Beach area was filled with eating establishments and some fun-looking bars. This was definitely a place we wish we would have got to spend more time. We walked down to the beach and got there right as the sun was setting. It was a beautiful scene.

On our way back to the car, we stopped for some ice cream at Lighthouse Ice Cream. They had some great flavors and an interesting feature item: the waffle ice cream sandwich.

Once again, our stomachs were as full as they could be, so the rest of the night was devoted to doing laundry at the hotel and preparing for our final day in San Diego and our visit to Petco Park.

We started the final day in the city by visiting the San Diego Zoo, which is in a different location than the Safari Park.

The zoo was massive and the street signs and the map made it kind of difficult to navigate. We saw a lot of the same animals that we saw at the safari, but there were some exciting new ones such as the pandas.

 So cute, right?

After exploring much of the zoo, we wanted to check out the polar bears as our final exhibit, even though that meant walking across the whole zoo to see them. Unfortunately, this was the only sight we got to see:

We stopped by the gift shop on our way out and headed to Coronado for a late lunch. The island, part of which is used by the Nave SEALs for training, had a similar feel to Ocean Beach, but it was a little more ritzy. We got lunch at Miguel's Cocina Mexican Restaurant. Another great meal.

The game

It was finally time for us to get down to business and see another baseball game, this time at Petco Park!

The stadium portion of the trip got off to a fun start, as we arrived at Petco as the Miami Marlins were finishing up batting practice. Not more than five minutes after walking into the ball park, a Marlin (who we believe to be slugger Giancarlo Stanton) hammered a screaming line drive down the left field line and to the pavilion area where we were standing. This ball was crushed. You could hear it whizzing through the air as it got closer to us. To say Ben had a chance at catching it might be a stretch because of how hard this was hit, but he got a hand on it.

This promised to be a fun visit because we were sitting in our most unique seats to date. We sat on the The Rail of the Metal Supply Co. Building, which is actually built in to the ball park in the left field corner. The Padres call this seating area San Diego's version of the seats on the Green Monster. Stanton also hit a homer during batting practice that hit off one of the chairs way up here on the Rail.

 Behind our seats was an air-conditioned bar/restaurant with tables and chairs, couches and TVs. There was also a bathroom inside, which was shared by only the people on the Rail and in the restaurant, rather than sharing with the whole stadium. It was a nice perk. We also had a waitress come out and check on us during the game while in our seats at the Rail.

The game itself did not go well for the Padres. With the game tied at 1-1 in the top of the third, the Miami Marlins scored seven runs, highlighted by a bases loaded triple from Adeiny Hechavarria. Eight different Marlins recorded at least one hit, and despite San Diego hitting four home runs (all solo), Miami won the game 13-4.

The area around the stadium seemed like a really fun place to spend a night after the game. Unfortunately for us, we knew we had an early morning ahead as we had to prepare for our trip to Arizona.

The standings

This was an amazing adventure for us. The city of San Diego was beautiful, full of life, had so much to offer, and, let's face it, the weather is absolutely perfect seemingly at all times. San Diego crushed the competition. This trip earned a rating of 8.9, well above any other stadium.

We had great seats for the game at a beautiful stadium filled with friendly fans and great food choices. The city had friendly people everywhere we went. And it was just a relaxing environment overall. The beaches were great, the restaurants were amazing; it was hard to find a negative about this trip. It was spectacular. If you need further evidence, scroll to the top and read this post again.

Rank	Stadium	Rating
1.	Petco Park (Padres)	8.9
2.	Kauffman Stadium (Royals)	8.4
3.	Target Field (Twins)	8.3
4.	Angels Stadium (Angels)	8.3
5.	U.S. Cellular (White Sox)	8.3
6.	Wrigley Field (Cubs)	8.3
7.	Miller Park (Brewers)	7.2
8.	Coors Field (Rockies)	7.1
9.	Dodger Stadium (Dodgers)	6.2

On deck

We will post our trip to Arizona for the Diamondbacks game soon. As always, please feel free to hit us up with suggestions on things to do at any trip we are going on. Be sure to like our Facebook page, follow us on Twitter, @MLBjourneymen, and check out our Instagram account, mlbjourneymen.