We have couple that we are friends with who are having a baby in May and planned on going to San Diego before the baby came, and they invited us to go along with them! Which was SO thoughtful of them and I am SO happy that they did!
We all had such a fun time! It was an amazing break and I'm sad that it's over. (But also, happy to be back in our own bed and having our own routines again with Rose.)
We made a road trip of it, and the 11 hour drive went surprisingly well with our cute, but hates-to-be-still-for-too-long, baby. She didn't sleep at all the whole way, but she was also pretty happy for most of the trip. She was very excited that both mom AND dad were sitting right next to her in the car. We ate dinner at In-n-Out in Las Vegas and the only real negative part of the drive was when we arrived in California and couldn't find a single public bathroom for the pregnant lady to use. (It was a little after midnight when we tried, and I guess California doesn't like to leave their bathrooms open at night?) California did not make the best first impression, but we survived, and our opinion of California changed throughout our trip.
We arrived at our Airbnb around 2 am (3 am Utah time) so we slept in in the morning and tried to catch up on our lack of sleep. It was a pretty humid day, so instead of going to the San Diego Zoo as planned for our first day, we decided to go to Old Town. We probably could have spent our entire trip walking through Old Town. We all loved it! They have all the old style shops, designed like early California. We spent way too much money on souvenirs from there, but it was definitely worth it! I think my favorite shop was the haberdashery which had tons of vintage clothing and other antiques. Ryan even tried on a top hat for me! (Unfortunately, I don't have any photo evidence of that.) I found some pretty earrings there. My other favorite shop was probably the gems and stones shop. The preschooler in me still loves to pick up pretty rocks and stick them in my pocket, so I picked two really pretty stones to buy and Ryan bought some handmade dice made from some sort of other stone. We finished off Old Town by eating dinner at Casa Guadelajara which did NOT disappoint.
To end the day, we went to the beach and watched the sun set over the ocean. Which I have missed a whole lot since the last time I had a chance to go to the beach in Florida. (It is important to know that I am a Florida girl through and through, and grew up watching sunsets on the beach. It's good for the soul and my soul has been missing it, so this trip was really really nice.) One little side story: we didn't realize how fast the tide comes in, so at one point all of our shoes that were sitting on the sand got soaked by a wave and we had a difficult time getting them to dry enough to be used for the rest of the week.
On day two in San Diego, we went to the San Diego zoo! Which was tons of fun! You can't feed the giraffes there, but you can look at them and the hundreds of other animals they have! We saw ALMOST everything. The line for the pandas was too long, so we missed that, and when we arrived by the Polar bears, we realized we would have to walk downhill and then come up hill, but this was at the end of our day at the zoo and we were all WAY too tired to make that effort, so we also missed the polar bears. But we got to see gorillas, orangutans, a tiger, a couple of lions, lots of other monkeys, including a mom with a very little baby monkey, a hippo, a crocodile, lots of cool birds, etc. We also got to take the sky lift and see the whole zoo from up very high, which was a pretty cool experience. We got two souvenirs here, a hat with a cool lion design for Ryan and a very soft stuffed elephant that is about the same size as Rose for her.
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| Poor thing was SO tired, she took a nap while we walked around for about half an hour. |
On day three we had a bit more difficulty navigating San Diego. It was a Saturday and it felt like we spent half of the day driving, finding parking, and walking a million miles to where we ACTUALLY wanted to be. There was a lot we wanted to cram into our last day, and so we had to prioritize and do the most important things. We wanted to go to the beach, we tried to go on a hike on the Torrey Pines trail, but we had to walk forever just to get there and by the time we arrived, we needed to turn around. So, we spent time on the beach nearby and found lots of pretty rocks to bring home with us. The beach there had tons of stones that had been smoothed out by the ocean, similar to our experience on our first evening, the tide was coming in quickly and Rose almost got swept away when we were all sitting around playing with the rocks. She was having a blast picking them all up and tasting them when I yanked her up just in the nick of time to not be soaked, and I hurt her feelings by doing that.
After the beach with all the rocks, we went to Seaport Village to look at the shops and to eat real sea food. We found a place that was .8 miles away and figured that we could walk there, but .8 miles in California is like 3 million miles anywhere else! (I'm only exaggerating a little bit...) it took FOREVER. The food was worth it though. We had shrimp and coconut shrimp and salmon and squid and everything else that sounded good. It was delicious! (We ate at Gaslamp Fish House.)
To finish of the day, we had to forego some of our plans, but we made sure to stop and get gelato at a chocolate place in the Gaslamp Quarter and then to go to La Jolla (Pronouned la hoya. When you say it the way it looks you get in trouble.) beach to see the sea lions and watch the sunset. Sea Lions stink, but they are funny and fun to watch. Also, the beach was BEAUTIFUL! There were rocky cliffs, the waves were huge and crashed against the rocks. There were tons of pretty white and purple flowers growing along the top of the cliffs and there was some moss (or seaweed?) on the rocks. You can't really go swimming there, but the view is stunning!
Before we drove back on Sunday Morning, we went back to La Jolla to Shell Beach and found some pretty shells to take home with us.
The drive back went well, besides the last hour when Rose decided she had had ENOUGH of her car seat and was just not going to be happy until she was out for good. (No naps for 5 days and 12 hours in a car seat would put anyone in a bad mood, I'd think.)
All in all it was a really wonderful trip and I would definitely go back again as long as I had someone to drive me around like this time. California has a lot of good things going for it. It is SO green, there are so many kinds of flowers growing on the side of the road, the beach, the weather, the foooooood. But those drivers, freeways, and the parking situations, I think I'll leave those to someone else to deal with!
And as usual, I have pictures.... and I know there are going to be A LOT, but keep in mind that I managed to take 1,148 pictures on this trip (not including the pictures and videos I took on my phone) so whatever number I manage to shrink it down to will be such a small fraction of the many many pictures I took this week, and you should be proud of me! :) Enjoy!
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| My hair gets wavy in the humidity as you can see in this picture. |
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| I'm very proud of this photo. :) |
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| Look how big this cactus is! |
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| That hair! XD |
