Our Southern California trip got off to a bit of a rough start with a lost and a found. The house was in complete disarray with all the downstairs belongings moved either upstairs or to the garage for the hardwoods to get refinished while we were out of town. In the chaos of misplaced items, I couldn't find the charger for my good dSLR camera. The battery was completely dead, so we had to give up and leave for a beautiful destination with just an iPhone and crappy point and shoot camera for preserving our memories. Sigh. That disappointment was quickly forgotten though when I discovered the "found"... lice... or more precisely, louse. Is there any worse way to start a vacation? It was literally about 15 minutes before we were to leave for the airport. A child's head was itchy. I investigated, and found one lone louse. I suspect he had friends, but I wasn't able to find any other bugs or any nits. I may have caught them early, but it was still a lousy (or louse-y?) way to start a vacation. This is the second time I've had to spend vacation evenings doing lice treatments and picking nits. There are few things in life that repulse me more than lice. Anyway... despite lice and lost camera chargers, we were off.
I wasn't going to let our lost and found adventures spoil our fun. We arrived in San Diego Friday night, grabbed our rental car, navigated through San Diego traffic, found our condo, ate a quick dinner, and got to bed. Surely day two would be better.
Saturday morning, we headed to the Embarcardero for our Seal tour.
It ended up being the perfect start to our trip, and I highly recommend a Seal tour if you ever go to San Diego. We boarded the big open air bus and were treated to a nice guided tour through town.
After about a 30 minute land tour, the bus drove straight into the harbor for the 60 minute sea portion of the tour.
We learned all about San Diego history, the military presence in San Diego, seals, sea lions other marine life, and about all the landmarks and attractions around the harbor. Did you know that the U.S. Navy trains dolphins to search for sea mines? You learn all kinds of cool tidbits during a Seal tour.
The highlight of the Seal tour is seeing all the sea lions, cormorants, and pelicans up close.
(All those pictures would have looked so much better taken with my big dSLR camera... but I digress). After the Seal tour, we were all hot and hungry. What we should have done was eaten lunch right there at the Embarcardero. Instead, I steered our little family over to Old Town San Diego where both traffic and parking were much worse than I anticipated. That becomes a pattern for our whole trip. By the time we finally found a parking spot and the closest Mexican restaurant, we were all famished. San Diego with its famous "72 degrees all year round" weather was about 90 degrees that day. This poor little one was ready to collapse.
After re-energizing with some authentic Mexican tamales, we were able to have some fun exploring Old Town.
We saw the old one room school, studied every rock and mineral in the rock and mineral shop, learned about spinning wool, and came to the conclusion that living in San Diego back in the 1850's was HOT. VERY VERY HOT. What happened to the freaking 72 degrees we were promised? We had sweat pouring down our backs. We explored Old Town as long as we could tolerate the heat and then headed back to the condo.
After a little rest time, we had our next adventure in the joy that is San Diego traffic. We decided to head across the Coronado Bridge to Coronado Island to show the kids where their grandmother was born, get some dinner, and spend a little time on the beach. It all sounded so simple.... Bridge, dinner, beach.
Instead, it was "Why is everyone in the universe going to Coronado Island RIGHT NOW???" A quick google search, and we found out it was fleet week for the U.S. Navy. As part of the fleet week entertainment, there were all sorts of car races on Coronado. To add insult to the traffic insanity, we got lost trying to find the restaurant. After driving nearly to Mexico and turning around, we finally got to dinner with starving kids once again. We were 0 for 2 for feeding them in a timely manner that day. We finally got to the beach well after dark.
The kids ran around on the water's edge for a while, and JC and I and remembered it was our anniversary... seventeen years! I think that makes us old.
Whew... long day... lots of fun, but exhausting. We all conked out and got a good night's sleep ready for more adventures the next day.
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