San Diego Trip

We had a great time on our trip to San Diego. We were only there for 4 days, but we sure filled them up with a lot of fun activities. On Monday we went to Sea World.

This is at the Shamu viewing tank. There were 2 of them swimming around in there. It was really neat to see them up close and personal like that.

This one cracked us up since it liked to swim upside down.

Magnificent creatures!

Next we went to the dolphin tank. We just so happened to get there at feeding time. It was the neatest thing to be able to reach in and pet them, and then hand them a little fish. They feel slippery and smooth and their skin is tough, like rubber. No wonder they can swim so fast.

These little otters were in the next tank over from the dolphins. They look so playful. It's always fascinating to see them grab some food and then float on their backs and break it open with a rock...must not have been feeding time for them, but it was fun to watch them swim around.

Tracy touching a bat ray. They had a couple of these tanks around where you could interact with the sea creatures...it was a lot of fun.

Peter with a starfish. Just before we took this one, there was a little girl pulling a starfish out of the water...despite all the times the lady repeatedly said not to. She was pretty small, but her parents must not have been listening either.

The Shamu show is always a highlight at Sea World. Knowing these orca weigh tons, and seeing them jump out of the water like that, so effortlessly, is just amazing!

About to jump out of the water with one of the trainers. It's so hard to time these things. I was hoping to get them a little higher in the air, but by the time the silly camera was ready to take another shot, it was too late.

This little fella thought he'd see what he could clean up after the people at the next table left. Peter was throwing him pieces of his hamburger bun so he wasn't in any hurry to leave.

Peter with the San Diego marina behind him. It was fun to go across the bay in the sky like this.

Later on we will go up in that tower too.

The seymore and clive show. This was the funniest show of the day by far.

It's amazing what they can train these animals to do.

Shark encounter. We went on this conveyor belt and the sharks were all around us as we went under this tunnel...it was very cool...but don't go if you are claustrophobic.

It was tough to get a good shot of this. You can see the sharks tail here, but the camera either focused on Peter, or the shark, and we couldn't get both...a real bummer.

Those are some pretty big cat fish. Again, if the flash goes off, you see the people, if not you see the fish, but there seemed to be no way to get both.

The dolphin show was fun.
The kid was picked earlier to be able to go and be apart of the show.

Taken from the sky tower. That's our red truck in the parking lot. I can't believe we could actually find our car, but there it is.

The dolphin show arena from up above.
Not sure what kind of whale that is, but it wasn't part of the show.

Polar Bear

It was really tough to get in here to get a good shot. People were just parked by the windows while they were feeding them and wouldn't let others in to see too. Peter finally got this shot of the walrus after they feeding was done.

Manatees truly are beautiful creatures! They look so friendly.

Again we had trouble inside the penguin encounter. There were signs all over saying not to take flash photos because the time of year for them it is usually really dark. There were some outside though. For some reason, I thought all penguins lived in the cold, but there are some in the tropics too. This is the kind that lives near the islands of Central America.

Last event of the day. We went to the Cirque De La Mer show. The guy in the middle was taken from the audience, but as the show went on and we saw how much they had him in it, we thought he had to have been part of the act.

These guys were all so amazing. The way they were able to hold onto these poles and all the crazy stunts they did. It was a great show. We are glad we decided to stay at the park a little longer...this one was definitely worth seeing.

Tuesday we went to the Wild Animal Park. Sea World is right on the ocean so it was nice and cool there, but this was more inland and hotter than we were expecting.

Their ostrich population is already high enough, so they don't let these eggs get fertilized. They may look small, but they are about the size of a Nerf football.

Storks

Zebras

Gazells

Rhinos

We went on the train to be able to see all these animals. But you can also go on a photo safari and have these jirrafe eating out of you hand. That must have been fun for them.

Cheetah. On the train ride we learned that this cheetah just gave birth about 7 weeks ago. Her little cub is in the animal care center. We're not sure why they didn't let them stay together, and let the mother raise her cub.

Flamingos. We learned at Sea World, that flamingos are pink because they eat shrimp. Not sure about that though, because I know they don't cook them first.

We were watching the ducks swim around and noticed these huge cat fish in the water with them. We got some food out of the dispenser they had there, and were able to get a couple good shots of them coming to the susrface.

Whorthogs

Don't remember the name of this one, but I like it's coloring.

We went over to the gorillas and they had this sing where we could see how we measured up.

Wow, Peter has a long arm span.

This guy may not look too happy, but I think he was eating some carots.

These mercats were fun to watch. They had all these tunnels dug in the ground. I made some noises to try to get their attention and they all started to come out. I though it was because of me, but they were all looking up at the sky. There was an airplane flying overhead.

Here's that cute little 7 week old cub. He looks so harmless in there. They had a few others that were a little older too, but this little guy was all by himself.

We went into the petting zoo there. It was neat to actually be that close to the deer and pet them.

Silly tourists!

Lorakeet Landing. They don't call it that for nothing. You buy this little cup of necter, and the loraketes land all over you to get some.

They are really beautiful birds.

Looks like there are three at this time. Tracy could just not stop laughing as these guys landed on her and drank the necter in the cup. It was cracking her up.

At one time she had 5 birds on her at once. look at the one on her hat. And what's that one doing in the bend of her arm?

He really like the taste of her arm. after the nectar was all gone, and all the other birds flew away, this one stayed for quite some time licking her arm like that. It really tickled.

Elephants

When Levi was in school, Peter went along as a chaperone with a group from the schoolas they camped out in the Wild Animal Park. He's not sure this is exactly the place, they stayed, but he wanted to get a picture here anyway. It's right next to Lion Camp, and just down the hill from the elephants, and the beautiful gardens.

This guy was parked on a jeep that they have in their camp.

That lioness looks quite comfy...glad she's on the other side of the glass though.

Another silly tourist shot.

On Wednesday we went to the Natural History Museum in the morning, and then went to Old Town in the afternoon.

This was taken inside the Natural History Museum. We enjoyed our visit there, but we are creationists, and most things are explained from an evolutionist stand point. There was a sand dollar fossil, for example, that was found on a mountain top. How did it get there, was the question posed. It was explaind that tectonic shifts (like an earth quake) drove the ocean floor up so rapidly that it became the top of a mountain. Couldn't a world wide flood be a more reasonable answer to that question?

Out here in the square between the museums, near the fountain, there was a guy playing bag pipes. Totally unexpected. We just had to get a picture.

Outside of the Natural History Museum. Isn't this fountain lovely?

We left from here to go to Old Town. When we got there, we found out a city tour was about to leave, so we decided to get on. It took a couple hours to go through, and you can get off at the various stops and explore a bit, and catch another trolley when it comes around. We decided to stay on the whole time. We also discovered there was a lot more to this city than we realized. It was really neat to see all the ships and air craft carriers. We will definitely have to come back for that.

On Thursday, we just kicked back in the hotel, slept in, cleaned and packed up, and got ready to head home.

A couple shots of our hotel room before we leave.

Checking out. We had such a good time that we are sad to leave, but of course we are looking forward to being home with our pets again. It sure would be nice to take some of this nice San Diego weather home with us as a souvenir, though. And speaking of souvenirs, we bout baby Grace her first stuffed animal at Sea World (a dolphin), and her second at the wild animal park (a cheetah.) She'll just have to wait a few months before she can have them.