Sorrento Valley, San Diego, CA

Sorrento Valley is San Diego's research district first and a neighborhood second. The canyon floor and the mesa above it, bounded by the spot where I-5 meets I-805 on the west, Camino Santa Fe on the east and Miramar Road to the south, fill with labs, tech campuses and office parks on weekdays, with Qualcomm and Dexcom among the big names. Mira Mesa lies east, with University City just south. The valley has a longer past than its office parks suggest. A Kumeyaay village stood here around 1700, and the California Southern Railroad came through in the 1880s on the same corridor the Coaster uses now. Homes are a small part of the map. A handful of subdivisions with houses and condos hold nearly all the residents, and the rest of the land belongs to industry and research, which took over after the freeways arrived in the 1960s and 1970s. The north edge is the best surprise. Los Peñasquitos Canyon, protected as a city and county preserve, begins near the freeway merge and runs about seven miles east through Peñasquitos and Lopez Canyons, with the old El Cuervo adobe ruins at its western end and a waterfall over volcanic rock farther in. Breweries do much of the hosting after work. Karl Strauss runs its Brewery Garden restaurant on Scranton Road, and Gravity Heights on Pacific Heights Boulevard is a full brewpub with a beer garden, house beers that rotate often and weekend brunch. Shopping centers along Mira Mesa Boulevard and Pacific Heights Boulevard pack in Indian, Korean and Vietnamese lunch counters, and Cargo Cafe runs express coffee counters for the office crowd. Daily errands mostly happen in Mira Mesa or University City, since there is little grocery shopping in the valley itself. The Coaster stops at Sorrento Valley station, linking north to Oceanside and south to downtown San Diego. The two freeways give fast access in both directions, and weekday commuter traffic converges on the same interchange. Evenings and weekends turn quiet once the campuses empty out, and the canyon trails at the north edge are close enough to walk to from the homes nearby.