Thursday's Zoo Adventure

I wasn't able to post this yesterday, so I'm doing it now - in the Long Beach Airport! Thankfully, they have Wi-Fi. Jason and I are about 2 hours early for our flight! Yesterday was a wonderful experience at the Zoo! Jason and I sported our hats we got from Gaslamp Quarters, and he will tell you himself how this is the hat of his dreams :). We found our favorite multi-species exhibit, which had monkeys and otters! It was so fun watching the otters trying to get the treats from one of the monkeys. The exhibit was beautifully landscaped, with waterways for the otters, and tons of climbing equipment for the monkeys. Oh, and they also had some sort of pig species as well. The lady who was feeding the animals treats (she worked there) told us that the monkey we saw playing with the otters would sometimes hop on the pigs and ride them like horses!! We didn't see that, but we enjoyed what we did see!
Lunch was at the amazing Albert's Restaurant, which provided us seating right next to a waterfall! The food was delicious, but the atmosphere was what was most memorable. It was definitely a place we would recommend to anyone visiting the San Diego Zoo! It was a wonderful last day at the Zoo, and we are so grateful we were able to go as many times as we wanted during the week.
Later that day we picked up our rental car and tried to go to the Cabrillo National Monuement, but it was closed. We got to see some great views of San Diego though that we otherwise wouldn't have been able to see. I'll post those pictures later today when we get home. What a wonderful trip!

Old Town San Diego

Old Town was great! We got there when a lot of the demonstrations were already finished, but we still really enjoyed it. We found a great Mexican Restaurant - Casa De Reyes - which had a fabulous environment, and great food! We even made a chip "toast" to a wonderful place! There was a Native American dancing group putting on a presentation right next to where we were eating. We even found the first school house ever built in San Diego! The rules and consequences are hilarious! Things sure have changed over the years! After exploring for a short bit, we got back on the bus and headed back to the hotel. Then Jason decided he wanted to buy the hat he had tried on at the Gaslamp Quarter yesterday, so we hopped back on the bus a half hour later. He says he's always wanted a hat like this! He'll use it for rafting and outdoor things. Too funny...

Snorkeling - Via the Temple!

So today's adventures (thus far) have been nothing short of exciting! As we were on thus bus on our way to go snorkeling, we saw the temple spirals close by. "Wow Jason - look! Snorkeling is close to the temple! We'll get to see it close up after all! How great!" Yes, how great... and it was, except that we accidentally got our bus directions mixed up with the Temple and snorkeling. So we took some quick pictures by the temple (which is temporarily closed for maintenance and upkeep - hence the equipment around the spirals), then frantically tried to figure out a way to our snorkeling tour (hence the picture of me on my phone's GPS desperately trying to find a way). We found out we were 4 miles from the place. Walk, bus, taxi? We called the snorkeling place and they said our tour guide was waiting for us, so if we didn't show up they'd have to charge us anyway. Luckily a taxi drove by, and we waved him down and were able to get there. We were two minutes late, but we did it!
Our snorkeling guide's name was Ryan, and he was tons of fun. He had just finished up his Master's in Marine Biology, and was working towards he PH.D.! So we got suited up in our wetsuits, bought a reasonably priced underwater digital camera, and were off! The snorkeling was great. The water was pretty murky, but it was still really fun. We saw tons and tons of Leopard Sharks! They were swimming all over around us (I know Jenny, not your idea of a good time! lol). After about 30 minutes, I started getting sea sick... We had seen all we wanted to see, so we headed back to the shore. One of the pictures is of a Leopard Shark. I had to enhance the picture so that you could see it better - the water was murkier than it looks.
Anyway, we took the hour and a half bus trip back to the hotel after that, and I was nauseous most the way! Yuck. Feeling tons better now though. So here are some pictures of the adventure so far today! Later we are headed to Old Town and Little Italy. HOW FUN!!!

San Diego - Sea World and Downtown

A brief overview (since I don't have time to caption every photo). Sea World was great! The first ride we did was Atlantis. It was like a roller coaster/water ride. We sat in the front of the boat, which got us soaked! Our photo from the ride is quite funny... I look freaked - Jason looked like he loved the thrill! We caught the water rafting ride at the best time possible. We just walked right up to the front of the line, and got right on! Apparently that rarely happens. We got SOAKED on that ride! Then we hit the Cirque Del Mar show - FABULOUS! Acrobatics and some comedy. The two guys in the pictures were AMAZING. How did they do that??!!! We got some lunch at the park (which is unheard of for both of us - we're both use to leaving the park, eating a sack lunch, and coming back in - it was actually a good meal). Shamu was great as always. There had to have been thousands of people in that stadium; it was packed. The shark encounter had the best ambience when you first walked in, but the shark tub viewing was the same as the one in Six Flags. Still fun though. We were pretty tired after we were done. We came back to the resort, took a nap, then headed to downtown - the Gaslamp Quarter. It's streets were packed with people heading to bars, clubs, and restaurants. We found a Gharidelli's!! We both had Sunday's - DELICIOUS!!! Overall it was a fun filled day. Thanks to the bus system (and Jason's expertise on using it), we have made it everywhere in great timing and saved lots of money. FUN, FUN, FUN!!! Tomorrow is snorkeling at La Jolla Cove. We'll keep you posted!