Do you ever find yourself overwhelmed with a list of things that have to get done? Seriously, I find myself in just that kind of situation right now. I feel like no matter how much I do I just cannot get caught up. The clock just seems to move at lightning speed anymore and I find that the older I get the faster it goes. This is when I also know I am trying to do too much too fast and have to force myself to sit back and chill out for a bit and that is exactly what I did.
I have to say I just had three perfect days. My wife, Denise, had vacation this past week and beings I was away for over a month we did not want to leave our furry and feathery children for a full week, so we decided on a mini vacation to San Diego. San Diego is only a two hour drive from our house. Both of us had always wanted to see the San Diego Zoo. I am one who loves a good bargain. When we decided on going to San Diego one thing that was a must was a nice hotel room that would not break our pockets. Drum roll please, Priceline, need I say more. I don’t know how much I can praise this company. Every thing from air fare, rental cars, cruises and hotels I have gotten from them. If you really want a bargain then you must try them. We were able to score a four star hotel for $89 a night. We ended up staying at the Omni in the Gaslight district and only two blocks from the bay. In fact our room had a view of the bay and of the Petco Arena, which is where the San Diego Padres play baseball. From the moment we pulled in we were treated with first class service. Everything we wanted was gotten for us and in record time. When our bell man brought up our luggage we asked if we could get a mini fridge for our room. He called downstairs right away and within 5 minutes we had a fully running mini fridge to store our drinks in. The room we had was very clean and the bed was extremely comfortable. Normally I go to hotels and almost always walk away with a backache when I leave, this was one of the things that extremely important for me in the hotel. One of the other things I loved was check out was at noon, not like a lot of hotels that make you check out by 10 AM. Check in was also at 3 PM instead of the normal 4 PM at other hotels.
Our first day was spent walking around the town just checking out the different sites. It was a beautiful night with temps in the lower 70’s. The city was alive and active. We enjoyed a nice dinner at an Italian restaurant on 5th street. After a few hours of touring the town we went back to our hotel and had a great nights rest. Our second day was our only full day in the city, that day was spent at the San Diego Zoo, which just happened to be celebrating its 100 year anniversary. The zoo is huge at 100 acres. It houses 3700 animals and 650 species and sub species. Honestly I wish we had a few more days as we were not even able to see half of the zoo in the day we spent there. The zoo is one of the pioneers in the concept of open air, cage less exhibits that recreates the animals natural habitat. What we did see we totally enjoyed. The zoo is currently constructing a few new areas that I am sure we will go to when finished. One of my favorite things was the polar bears. There was one in the water that was having a ball going back and forth. I think I could have just stayed there for hours watching him swim. That was my first time ever seeing a polar bear and I was just amazed at its size and how gracefully he moved. The panda bear display was currently under construction so the panda’s were housed in the monkey area. We did get to see the baby panda but the mamma was a no show for us. We also got to see a koala bear sleeping and monkeys swinging around. The giraffes at the zoo are a different variety from the ones we have here in the desert and we were able to get up close with them. After hours of walking we took the kangaroo bus around before heading out to our hotel. We were so tired when we got back we didn’t even bother to eat dinner.
The third day we decided since we did not eat dinner we would have a room service breakfast of bagels, a pot of coffee, and juice. The meal came up exactly on time and I was pleasantly surprised that I was given a full carafe of coffee and we were given 12 ounce glasses of juice. After checking out of our hotel we decided to drive up to the Seaport Village and harbor. There was one cruise ship in port that had arrived that morning. This was the first ship of the cruise season. We also saw the USS Midway, which I would love to tour on my next visit. We did not get to walk around the village this trip but we will make a point of it in the near future.
Our mini vacation has now come to an end and once again I find myself playing catch up. Here’s to life and all the adventure it can hold for those who are willing to take the journey.