It's a Zoo Out There

Tuesday morning we woke up early and took the 15 to the 163 and then took the 5 exit (San Diego Zoo). The directions that the Little Ones' grandpa gave us made Scott think of The Californians skit on SNL.

Note: I really liked the cell phone towers designed to look like trees along side the highways- my favorite was the palm tree.

View from the Bucket

Aubri and a Kingfisher

One thing I observed about the animals is how much they seemed to not really care for the spectators. Many of them took to showing the crowds their butts. For example:

Polar Bear Playing

One gorilla ran toward the plexiglass and then turned like he was purposefully showing the crowd his butt. I can only imagine how annoying it would get to have people staring at you while you are trying to live your life...




The flamingos seemed fairly peaceful though.

Aubri Wanted to See the Flamingos

"Cheeto Tarantula" Looking Flowers

And this sweet guy made me miss my sweet Gracie Goo.

Red Panda Napping

After the zoo, we hit In-N-Out Burger for some burgers "animal style", then headed to the Cabrillo National Monument to check out the tide pools. We were bummed to find that we missed low tide so we didn't get to see trapped marine life, but we did get to witness a lone sea lion.

Us on the Cliffs

I wasn't able to capture a photo or video of that lone fellow but I heard his friends on the other side from up at the visitor center. We checked out beautiful views of Coronado Beach and the bay.

Wish I could have captured the cool breezes from up here...lovely and cleansing for the soul...

Later we walked up to the Cabrillo Lighthouse.

This lighthouse & museum reminded me of our stay on the Queen Mary back in March 2008.

It was neat to see what was growing in the lighthouse garden.

I have always wanted to grow artichoke in my garden...

We explored around the monument and then we headed to our hotel on the bay.

Oh, I think I could have stayed here more than 1 night!

This was the view outside our room.

We sat out on our balcony for a very long time watching the boats come in and out of the harbor...

And this was the view inside our room:




These kidlets didn't seem to appreciate all of the nature and history that we did. They begged to turn the  TV on. We let them so we could get back to this for a few precious moments:




For dinner we went down to Old Town San Diego to Cafe Coyote. I knew I wanted fish tacos while in San Diego but I didn't know I'd be getting world famous ones.

Fish Tacos and Shrimp Enchilada (muey bueno!)

After we stuffed ourselves full of dinner and explored the candy shop located in the restaurant, we wandered around Old Town checking out the open air market. We watched tortillas being made, got some ice cream and met a friendly bantam rooster.

Aubri wanted to get up on Daddy's shoulders and 17 seconds later this happened.

Poor sleepy senorita...

That was our cue to get back to our hotel and rest up for the next day...