San Dee-Yay-Go Super-chargerz

Hey! We went on vacation!

We left home around noon and arrived in San Diego around 3pm. We dropped our stuff off at the hotel and headed to Sea World. It was actually pretty ideal timing. It wasn't too crowded or hot, and Dash had already napped in the car so I wasn't freaking out.

We stayed until closing and got to watch the Shamu Rocks spectacular and I got to learn some things.

1. It's not Shamu. It's like 9 whales who perform as Shamu in rotation.
2. They're called killer whales because they kill other whales. And then morons like us buy stuffed animals in their likeness for our tots to cuddle.
   
3. Josh and I decided that the women who perform with the whales are trainers, not professional dancers. Which is a weird place to end up after all that schooling, no?
   

The next day we swam in the hotel pool until noon, then all three of us napped until almost 4pm. The concierge at the hotel sent us over to Seaport Village for restaurants and shopping. Listen, if I never do another thing for you in this lifetime, let me do this: do not go to fucking Seaport Village. It is quite likely the most depressing place on earth. The shops are dusty and contain not one item worth coveting. Even the toy store was depressing. Apparently the owners really love Jesus. So much that the music overhead was children singing about The Lord and the little wooden "create your own plaque" display read "Christ is King." The carriage ride was nice, but the driver really wanted to talk about boats and the Navy and we had to keep shushing poor exuberant Dash so as not to seem rude.

But they had ice cream.

The next day we went to the zoo and saw all the usual suspects. Dash was psyched to see the elephants but I think the pandas blew his mind the most. (In the picture at the top center you can see a polar bear backpack we bought Dash the previous day at Sea World. I asked what the bear's name was and he said, "Clark." So now we have a bear named Clark.)

I didn't expect we'd be at the zoo for as long as we were, so when Dash fell asleep in his rented stroller at lunchtime, we just lugged him into Albert's . They wouldn't let us bring the stroller into the restaurant, so I held him while drinking my Chardonnay and eating pizza (both delivered by the surliest waiter I can remember having in a good long time. let me ask you--how can you be surly about serving a couple with a sleeping toddler in their arms?) When he awoke an hour or so later he made not a peep, just reached for a slice.

Here's the view from our hotel window. The fog hadn't burned off yet when we took these so you'll just have to trust that the view was lovely.