La Jolla and the Zoo (San Diego, Part 2)

OK... so it takes me a week. Moo. :)

Anyway... I finally got the other photos uploaded from our trip. Not all are great (mostly in the zoo, sadly). But browse and enjoy (pops in new window).

So... for the rest of the weekend's tales, now that the photos are up...

As I mentioned in my last entry, our flights to San Diego were hellish. Part of this was our own fault when we made our reservations. We thought we were taking a 6 a.m. flight, and were psyched that we'd get there around 11 a.m. on Thursday, so we'd have most of the day to play around. But we didn't read things correctly... we were taking the 6 p.m. flight out of Providence. (sigh) Our first flight took us to Minneapolis. Thunderstorms throughout the ride made the trip rather bumpy, but nothing too horrible. We landed about 15 minutes late... and then pulled off to the side of the airstrip as we WAITED for a gate.

oh. joy.

Apparently, the thunderstorms had been bad enough that there was a groundstop in Minneapolis. Flights hadn't been able to leave, other flights were re-rerouted. So it was a big mess all over the place. At 9:15, we finally walked up the jetway into the airport. Our flight to San Diego was to leave at 9:20 originally-- on the opposite corner of the airport (as what always happens when I fly through Minneapolis... WTF?). I had no worries about missing it. We headed into the main mall area to grab a bite to eat-- everything was closed.

Random rant-- WHY do airports do this? Flights get delayed, and NOTHING is open in airports past 9 p.m. Regardless of the fact that the airport is PACKED with people almost on a daily basis from delays. Nothing's open-- no take-out restaurants, no newstands, nothing. It's stupid, people. I don't get this logic, especially in large airports such as Minneapolis, and especially now that airlines have craptastic food policies.

Anyway... we get down to our gate, where there's a McDonalds still open-- but it closes almost immediately after taking our order. Erich waits for food as I check the gate. 11 p.m. departure. Riiight... I didn't believe it would hold. (it didn't). Since I don't want to interrupt potential pre-wedding dining craziness with a phone call, I text Melinda letting her know the situation. At 12:30 a.m. central time, our plane takes off. Erich promptly passes out, and to my amazement, sleeps most of the horrendously bumpy ride there. I maybe get a five minute doze somewhere in the flight. We land at 1:30 a.m. pacific time, have surprisingly no problems with luggage or our rental car (heh... they gave us a complete overkill car-- a Grand Caravan... for two people!), and get on the road-- I text Melinda again to let her know we've arrived and that we'll call in the morning "when we get up... sometime after 10."

We get to the Days Inn in El Cajon about a half-hour later, after some wrong exits and wrong turns. By the time we get to bed, it's 3:30, and I'm griping about how it's LIGHT OUT at home by this time. We sleep... until 10 or so. We do a greasy-spoon breakfast at Denny's next door to the hotel. Because of the weird time shifting, we're pretty zonked all day, but we enjoy the Unrehearsal Dinner with Melinda and Kevin and their friends and family. The Italian food does give us a good dose of strength for the rest of the day.

After the dinner, we headed back to the hotel for a small rest. Erich took a nap while I did some internet touristy surfing. I was looking specifically for beaches where there might be seals or sea lions, so Erich could see them and his first view of the Pacific Ocean. The seals were an important thing for me-- one of my fondest memories with my mom was driving from her home in San Ramon (near San Francisco) down to Monterrey when I was about 13. We climbed along the rocks to a little secluded beach where there were about a dozen sea lions doing their thing. I wanted Erich to get a taste of that memory.

According to all of the tourist descriptions, we wanted to go to La Jolla. Once Erich was up, we headed down, taking a pretty route through the hills. We got to the beach just in time to do some photography and watch the sun go down over the water-- VERY romantic. :) After the sun set, we took advantage of the light skies to go look at the seals over at Children's Beach. Children's Beach was a man-made breakwater designed to give kids a safe place to wade in the Pacific. Due to the rocks, there are some impressive rip currents. Definitely not kid-safe. So this little nook was perfect for kids. Of course... the seals thought it was perfect, too, and moved in. Now they own the beach. No more swimming. :)

As it got too dark out, we walked up the hill to the main drag in La Jolla to find a place to eat. Almost immediately, we noticed a funky place with bonfires out front, and went in. Roppongi was fantastic. We sat at the bar (our exact chairs are in the website photo) and ordered four dishes from the tapas menu. They blew us away. It was definitely the expensive meal of the trip... but worth every penny. We chatted with the bartenders and with "that woman at the bar"-- one of those mid-50's regulars who has a thing for one of the bartenders. Much amusement was to be had once she left and we heard the rest of the story-- how she was downright possessive of the bartenders, and usually nasty to other women who flirted with him. :) Heh. By this time, we were both very tired and headed back to the hotel...

Saturday was the wedding, of course. Before the wedding, the only thing noteworthy was burgers at "In & Out," a California take-out chain. Erich kept snickering and making the obvious line of comments about the name, so we just had to go. Good burgers. Weird, but tasty fries.

On Sunday, per the recommendation of Kevin and his mother, we got up relatively early and headed straight for the San Diego Zoo. Coming from New England, we marvelled at the beauty of the highway heading TO the zoo- everything landscaped, everything lush and green. We arrived at the zoo a bit after 10, were happy that we definitely were on the earlier side-- good, close parking space, and headed inside.

Kevin's mom had recommended we immediately take one of the bus tours around the zoo to get an idea of what was where. After taking the tour, I definitely agree-- if you ever go to the San Diego Zoo, GO STRAIGHT TO THE BUS TOUR. Don't worry about sitting on the top level, either. Honestly, we had the much better views from the bottom level of the bus. The tour took us all around the park. We got our gratuitous elephant and gazelle shots in-- things that are always great to see as a zoo, but we've seen before. But we also got great recommendations of where to go, when to go see things, etc.

Once off the bus, we decided to head immediately to the pandas, since we knew there were two baby pandas at the zoo, and it was bound to be a very busy exhibit with the line of people we saw getting on the bus for the next tour. We ducked into one of the many newer nature paths in the zoo, admiring both the myriad of plants and animals as we made our way to the pandas. Kevin's mom had told me at the wedding that once we were at the zoo, her comment would make sense-- the plants at the zoo are more valuable than the animals in many ways. I could definitely appreciate that statement. We were overwhelmed by the beautiful plants. They came from all around the world, many being included in specifically themed habitats for the animals that live in a certain area.

Per Kevin's recommendation, we had a very good-- and thankfully light-- lunch at Albert's in the center of the zoo. After lunch, we headed back out. We saw polar bears, we saw all of the big cats. I did my girly thing and cooed at the meerkats and at the koalas. We went into the aviaries and were dive-bombed by birds. We walked everywhere until our legs were ready to drop off. By about 3:30, we were exhausted, out of camera space, out of camera battery charge, and so decided to head back to the hotel for a rest. We took advantage of the hotel pool and hot-tub to stretch and relax our sore legs before grabbing dinner.

Dinner that night, we'd decided, was going to be a very low-key, relaxed affair. And given that we were in San Diego, that meant one thing-- dive Mexican food. We decided to just stay around El Cajon and found, after some driving, Pancho's Taco Shop. (heh). We headed inside-- it actually wasn't quite as dive-ey as the name would suggest. BUT... we were definitely the only gringos there. :) The food was very good. Since the menu was in Spanish, we stuck to things we were familiar with. It was very tasty.

We were up very early on Monday morning, since our return flight was at 8:30. I wanted to make sure we allotted plenty of time since we didn't know the morning commute traffic patterns, plus we had to drop off our rental car. We were required to return the car full-- and the closest gas station to the rental place was not yet open when we arrived.

Thus began the Great Gas Search of 2006. Either we were going COMPLETELY the wrong way, but we discovered that all of the roads that looked logical to us had NO gas stations. At all. 45 minutes later, we finally dropped the car off. (this is why I always give myself 2 hours pre-flight at the airport... shit always happens. Always. TSA crap aside.)

Our flights home were much easier than going out west-- we were delayed in Detroit due to a water issue on the plane. But otherwise, things were very smooth. Erich got his first view of the Rockies, still heavily snow-capped this time of year. :) And he saw just how huge the squared off acreage known as the Midwest really is.

It was a wonderful vacation. I miss it already. I definitely will remember it as one of the best I've ever taken.