San Diego, CA; America's Finest City
Sid and I recently took a trip to San Diego to enjoy some fun in the sun without children. Normally, no children is the main ingredient to having a nice relaxing vacation but we added lots of fun sights and activities. Neither of us had ever been to California for anything besides flying into LAX so we had been looking forward to this trip for a while. Sid's mom was kind enough to come stay with the kids while we spent five days running around San Diego County. The marina above is actually in Mission Bay where we spent the first couple days. This was an award trip I had won through work so the first two days was spent cavorting around Mission Bay and Sea World with co-workers. We had an awards banquet the first night and then hit Sea World the next day. The pictures below are from Sea World and are Shamu heavy so if you've seen the show you can skip past them. They are amazing animals and really quite breathtaking in person. Sidnee had a bonding moment with one of the whales so you'll have to ask her about it next time you see/talk to her.
The following pictures don't do the show justice.
Did you know that the Killer Whale is actually a member of the Dolphin family?
I'm not sure why this lady was so scared. The Whale is not going to jump out of the tank and gobble you up lady.
We were sitting around where these people where but then wimped out and moved higher up out of the "Soak Zone."
The whales line up for treats much like our kids do.
This was part of the finale. It was really cool.
One of the other shows they have at Sea World is Sea Lions Live. They have a couple Sea Lions trained to do all sorts of tricks and play with the actors. It was pretty funny.
Sea Lion love. How cute.
Most everyone from work went home Sunday but we extended our trip a few more days. We drove around San Diego until we found a chapel and attended a singles ward meeting. After that we drove over to the temple. It was a beautiful day and we even ran into one of Aubrey's (our niece) friends from Syracuse, Utah while roaming the grounds. Small world. Anyway, the temple was getting a patch job on the roof so half of it was covered in scaffolding.
They have a senior missionary couple stationed at the temple on Sundays to answer questions. He also doubles as a photographer when he's not answering questions.
This is one of the views along the beach at La Jolla. If you've never bene to La Jolla just imagine Cannon Beach on Steroids. Same kind of set up only the shops are pricey and there are BMWs and Mercedes lining the streets. Swap the hooded sweatshirts and rainboots for short shorts and bikini tops and you have La Jolla, CA.
We stopped by the Mormon Battalion Visitors Center on Sunday night in Old Town San Diego. It was interesting. The Sister Missionaries used me to play the new fun game "Mormon Battalion Dress-up." It was a blast.
Sidnee tried her hand at panning for gold. I think her problem was the lime green pan she was using. They didn't have those in the gold rush era.
Sunday afternoon we checked into our second hotel of the weekend. This Hilton is right on the bay front in downtown San Diego and it was a really nice place. It seemed like a great deal on Priceline but then they end up fleecing you for parking and charge you $15 a day to use the treadmill. I will never stay there again. It probably has more to do with the fact that I'm a cheapskate than anything else.
Petco Park (San Diego Padres) was across the street from the hotel.
We spent some time Monday morning wandering around San Diego looking at some of the shops but mostly looking for a place to eat. We found a wood-fired pizza place that was delicious. Here is a picture of Sidnee perusing the menu. Isn't she cute?
This shot would never have happened if we had our kids with us. We were actually able to take a moment and look at the brochure and THINK about what we wanted to do next. This was a fountain in the middle of Balboa Park. We ended up visiting the Natural History Museum. It was great.
Sidnee in front of some pond. She is most likely angry because I keep taking pictures of her. She sure is cute when she's angry.
Monday night we watched the Padres play the San Francisco Giants. Attendance for a Padres Monday night game is pretty low so field level tickets are pretty cheap.
This is me next to one of the greatest hitters of all time. Well, a statue of him anyway.
This is David Eckstein and Bengie Molina chatting during warm ups. They used to be teammates on the Angels when they won the World Series a few years back. You probably don't care because you are not a baseball nerd. David Eckstein ended up hitting a game winning home run in the bottom of the tenth inning to win the game that night. I'm not a Padre fan but it was pretty cool.
They have really cool plants in San Diego that would not survive in the Northwest so we took a few pictures to share with our kids. You are free to enjoy.
Sidnee enjoyed the plant life so much she wanted to be a part of it.
It was a good, restful, fun weekend, but mostly restful. I highly recommend San Diego to anyone looking to vacation in California.
The End.
