San Diego

Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Last week my Mom, cousin and I went to visit another cousin of mine in California.  He and his wife recently had baby #2.  I blogged about our visit last Sunday.  We have had the pleasure of visiting my cousin's family on many occasions, and since they decided to settle in such a fun area, we love to explore the surrounding areas.  This time we decided to head on down to San Diego. 
We spent the first day following a 59 mile driving tour around the town
There are soooo many great places in California, but San Diego is definitely one of the top destinations.  There is NO way we could have seen everything on the tour, but we were able to stop at some really incredible places, and observe some really beautiful scenery on a typical beautiful day in sunny California.  We stumbled across Cabrillo National Monument with a great view of the city below. 

And a light house.  I heart light houses. 

Along with an area with tide pools you can crawl around. 

After our journey around the park, we headed down to La Jolla. 

There is an area called Children's Pool where tons of seals hang out and make lots of noise.  I'm just sorry I can't recreate the smell of the fish and birds that hang out with these fellas.

After we observed the seals, we headed on down the coast and ate dinner overlooking Mission Beach. 

Day Two we got up and headed to the San Diego Zoo.  Wow.  We have some great zoos in Dallas, but I think the cool think about the San Diego Zoo are the habitats.  For example, a lot of the exhibits with land/water animals like the hippo have a portion of the water build along the glass wall so you can see the animals swimming below the surface.  One of the cutest things was seeing the hippo bouncing along the bottom of the pool before emerging for breath.  There was a baby and it's mom on this particular day.  Baby animals!?!?!  Need I say more?

They also  have some unique animals like the Polar Bear, and the Panda. 

Precious.  My highlight were two brother bears (they have 7 of the 8 types of bears in the world) who were playing a really rambunctious game with this...uh....hose? 

The zoo really was neat.  Peacocks roam the grounds freely, there is free skyway and ground bus transportation that comes with the price of the ticket, and there is no way we could have seen it all, but what we saw was pretty great. 
After the zoo we headed over to Coronado Island.  I'd definitely love to head back here and hang out on the beach. 

We ended the day in the Gas Lamp Quarter, where we ate dinner at a Pub called The Field.  I highly recommend it, it was complete with a waiter who I suspect is actually from Ireland, or really good at accents.  Whatever, we enjoyed it, and the food. 

Our last day we went to the first mission in California, the San Diego Mission.  It was so beautiful, I'm DYING to see them ALL now.  Guess I'll just have to book another trip west.  Life.  Is.  Hard. 


I wish I could do it justice in words or pictures, but San Diego definitely makes my 'go back...soon.' list!  Here's a link to my entire adventure in CA.

3 comments

Anonymous said...

Yeah, I've been to LA, San Francisco, and San Diego, and San Diego was by far my favorite. (Need to take the hubby there sometime...) Mom, Sarah, and I went to SD for a week for Sarah's HS graduation. Unfortunately, the trip was somewhat of a fiasco b/c we didn't get along, but SD itself was awesome. I agree, the SD Zoo is the most amazing zoo I've ever been to. And I defintely I wouldn't call myself a zoo person, but I loved it. We also went to Coronado, drove around the Gas Light District, etc.

I believe now, if Mom, Sarah, and I took the trip again, it would be great. I've mentioned that to them, but I don't think it will happen.

Ben and Cjirsten said...

So I never comment but I love your blog, I check it very often, and love all your fun ideas. I just had to laugh though because I live in San Diego, my husband is in the Navy and we just recently were stationed here. . . .and ya I hate it so bad! So its funny to me people love to come visit :) But I am glad you had fun! You have gone to see some of the ships they are super cool!

Christy said...

I hear ya! I love Dallas, and can't imagine living anywhere else, but San Diego was fun to visit ;o)! You have some beautiful walking trails and weather, but....I do sort of love the seasons here, and I can still travel places like San Diego and appreciate them b/c they are so different from my normal! I loved it for three days, but I'm sure relocating is difficult!!!