Panda Bears, Koalas, and the Sunset That Wasn't

So, are you all sick of reading about my vacation yet? Because honestly, I'm pretty sick of writing about it. Thank goodness we are on the fourth and final day, so this will be my last vacation post. I'm really going to try and make it a Reader's Digest condensed version.

Thursday morning, we load up all our stuff, check out of hotel and head to the zoo around 11am. We did the guided tour bus thing, and also rode on the skytram. That was fun!

I'm putting in this picture just because I think it's cute:

We saw panda bears, koalas and we petted goats. We saw a lot more actually, which you can see by clicking the picture link at the bottom, if you really want to.

Panda Bear!

Isn't he cute? Koalas aren't bears, they're actually marsupials. Did you know that? I didn't. See, this trip was educational!

We spent some time in the Childrens' Zoo, and Kylie made friends with a goat. I think we spent about 6 hours total at the zoo, and I doubt if we even saw half of it. Place is friggin' HUGE! The zoo closed at 5pm, and the original plan was to grab a fast food dinner and head directly home. I figured if we were lucky, we'd make it home before midnight. But then I got this bright idea. We're on the west coast right? And really, there's nothing more beautiful than seeing the sun set over the Pacific Ocean. I had planned do that while we were here, and we just never got around to it. So in my brilliance, I said,

"Hey, since we're not that far from the Coronado Bridge, why don't we go over to Coronado Island (or as Kylie would say, Corndogo Island) and watch the sunset on the beach before we head home."

Everybody was on board with this idea, especially if it meant one last trip to the beach, so we headed in that direction. There was only one problem with my brilliant plan. Well, two problems but first things first. The first problem is that the sky looked like this:

This is a view from the Coronado Bridge. As you can see, it's totally overcast. Doubt we'll be seeing much of a sunset, but we decided to go see the beach one last time. So we crossed the bridge onto the island, and headed for the beach. Parked the car, grabbed a sweatshirt for everyone (because it was windy and cold, y'all!) and walked out towards the water. Steve brought the football. He and Danni tossed the ball around, Kylie and Shannon played down by the water, and I sat up under a lifeguard tower and covered my legs with sand, took pictures, and tried to stay warm. Ok seriously, it was COLD!

My feeble attempt at staying warm was to pull my hoodie totally around my face. Attractive, no? Here's a picture of the famous Hotel Del Coronado (or Hotel Del Corndogo)

So we goofed around for a while, and decided yeah, we won't be seeing any sunset tonight. We trudged up to the car, and after changing Kylie into some dry, non-sandy clothes, we reluctantly left San Diego. We grabbed a fast food dinner in El Cajon (your mom), and then got on the highway. The second problem with my brilliant "let's see the sunset" plan was that it was around 8:30pm by the time we finally got going. Steve drove to Yuma, which is just on the Arizona side of the CA/AZ border. By that time it was probably about 11:30 or closer to midnight, and we had to decide: Do we grab a cheap motel room in Yuma, of all places, or do we just keep going? I did NOT want to stay in Yuma, wake the kids up early and still have another three hours of driving in the morning to get home. Not to mention the money for another motel room. Well, Steve had had enough driving, so I'm all "I can drive!" I downed a couple of bottles of my liquid crack (ok, Diet Coke), and booked it down I-8 like a woman possessed at about 85 mph. Steve was totally snoring. Stopped about 100 miles later in Gila Bend (I had to pee, all that Diet Coke, you know), grabbed another bottle of the stuff and I was off again. Everyone even slept through my pitstop. I pulled into our driveway at about 2:15am. And thus endeth the tale of our vacation.

I wish I was still there. I would so much rather be on the beach right now. I miss it.

For all the pictures of the zoo and our trek to Corndogo Island, click here:

San Diego Zoo and Coronado Island

THE END. Whew.