We referred to it as the Gateway to San Diego.
On one side you had super touristy old town SD, and the pretty, well manicured part of the area.
But take a short walk through this mysterious portal of beer-ass hobo shit wiped up with free porno add mags, bird feathers, and trash of all the best kind and you find your self in the sun bleached, cracked or non existent sidewalked, county psych ward, and RV gypsy riders of all types parked like skynard's playing a month long engagement next to hwy 5.
I miss the excitement of it all.
Holy run on sentence batman.