San Die-aaaaaah-go!

Paige, Ella, and I went to San Diego for Paige's 30th birthday, and Ella's 4th. Or as Ella calls it, "San Die-aaaaaah-go." Paige has been talking about going to San Diego for years, so I figured this was as good a time as any. We had tickets to Sea World, the San Diego Zoo, and the Wildlife Park. More animals than you can shake a stick at (although the zoo keepers tend to frown when you shake sticks at the animals.)

After the usual hassle of being violated by airport security, we made it to San Diego. We made our way to the rental car place via the shuttle bus. Ella declared that this was her favorite part of the trip so far. So next year, we will just skip the actual vacation and go ride shuttle buses around Sky Harbor. We load up in our rental car... a convertible PT Cruiser. Doesn't really qualify as the mid-size we specified. We can only fit one suitcase in the "trunk." Ella, a huge suitcase, a her stroller all get crammed into the miniature back seat. I fold myself up like a pretzel and cram into the driver's seat. It's a good thing the convertible top is open, because I can see over the windshield. I'm not sure I would fit with the top down. We go to exit the parking garage, and the attendant spends a loooong time looking at our paperwork. Not a good sign. Finally, he says "I think you have the wrong car." Odd, we took the car parked in D12, just like they told us too. Sure enough, they goofed up and gave us the wrong car. I asked for an upgraded car, and got one, a Dodge Magnum. So we transfer all our stuff and finally get under way.

Head to the hotel (Nice choice Grandma Mary!), unload all the stuff, and head over to Sea World. Between 3:00 and 6:00, we managed to see most of it. It's smaller than I remembered. Ella was completely wiped out, and actually fell asleep on the car ride to the hotel, and didn't wake up until the next morning.

The next day we headed to the SD Zoo. Had lots of fun looking at all the animals. We spent the entire day there, and we still didn't get to see about 1/4 of the zoo.

The third day we headed to the Wildlife Park. We headed out of town, and about an hour later started wondering why we hadn't seen the sign for the park yet. We had somehow missed the turnoff and ended up about 40 miles past the exit. I'm not assigning blame for this mishap (but Paige was the one with the map!) Turn around, finally get to the park around noon. As we are pulling into the parking lot, Ella says "My tummy doesn't feel good!" and 2 seconds later... baaaaaarf. All over her shirt, on her pants, into the car seat. Lovely. We pile out of the car, pull off her shirt, scrub the puke off her pants, load up in the stroller.



I'm sure people thought we just pulled in from Arkansas, with our shirtless four year old, and the faint odor of stomach juices. On the plus side, Ella got to pick out a souvenir... a lovely new Wildlife Park t-shirt. The Wildlife Park is huge, and you walk a long ways, and the animals are usually not very close. I'm not sure it was Ella's favorite.

Ella had a good time at all the parks, as is obvious in the pictures below...



Sheesh. Obviously she inherited her father's sunny disposition, and his love of being photographed. We did manage to catch a few of her smiling while she was pretending to be grumpy...



We headed from the Wildlife Park down a short section of the Pacific Coast Highway. We stopped at the beach to check out the water.



The last day, we headed back to Sea World to catch the dolphin show and a few of the other things we missed. We also drove around Coronado so I could show Paige where I spent a few summer vacations. Paige harassed me that while I spent summers relaxing at the beach and sailing around San Diego harbor, she spent summers at the Meyer farm in Volga, South Dakota.