The West Coast

We returned last night, after two days in San Diego. We had a great time and only got a little lost:-) But that's the fun of a road trip, right?!? That and the snacks you get to buy at the truck stops.
Sunday we got to town and headed straight for the beach, a different beach this time, but still the beach. We found a great little restaurant where we got to eat outside that had huge salads (this was pre-lettuce recall, oh joy), called The Green Flash. Then we walked in the ocean.
It was a little cool but not bad once you were in the water. It was sunny and the tide was out. And we found sand dollars! It was so cool. There they were, just like you see in the shops or on the necklaces. We found a ton of them. We washed them off and laid them in my sandals and carefully brought them home. Very cool. We brought cracked ones home to, to break, to find the doves, which we did. God amazes me so much. To think that he put these here just for us to find. I mean why did they wash up but not the other shells of animals? Amazing!
Then we walked around the gaslamp district which was hopping because the Padres were in town. We ate at Buca di Beppo which had the most awesome Italian food and tons of it then we ended up in this restaurant/bar called Dick's Last Resort. We had drinks and a great brownie ice cream dish and lots of laughs. The band was funny, and not bad. They all had black afro wigs on and sang a lot of 80s/90s favorites. And the waiters are all obnoxious and scream and throw napkins and wrap the children in paper table cloth paper and make them giant hats that say things like "I fart a lot" or "I pee in the bathtub". It was pretty great. Also, the party behind us was 3 women and 3 kids. And the one woman had her little boy deliver a "note" to our cute waiter with her phone number on it. Gotta love moms who use their kids to hit on the nice waitstaff.
Monday we hit the Zoo. Highlights: the baby panda sleeping in the tree, the huge brown bear taking a soak in his pond, the polar bears jumpin in for a mid-morning splash, the dancing elephant (she just stood there swaying back and forth as if she had her ipod on!), the koalas lunching on leaves, the baby meerkats playing, the lionnesses chasing after lunch (which was being thrown by a zookeeper), the baby giraffe posing for a picture. It was a great zoo day, warm but not sunny. And the animals were pretty active which rocked.
All in all, a great weekend on the coast. I can't wait to go back! (Which we have to do since we left Ang's car there at the Saturn dealership. Oh and a note for all of you following my ongoing VUE saga: after driving it 3 hours to San Diego and the techs there driving it 30 miles on Monday, they can't find anything wrong with it! So I brought it home. Lovely.)