Day 11 & 12 -- San Diego Fun & House of the Mouse

VM:  The days are flying by. On Monday, we had a wonderful day in San Diego.  We decided to visit their world-famous zoo to enjoy the beautiful weather and see some cute animals.  We were not disappointed.

I'd been to the zoo many, many years ago as a kid.  It is really incredible.  They claim to be the world's largest and I believe it.  This zoo rivals most theme parks.  The animals' habitats are really impressive and overall, it is an incredibly maintained park.

HM found her kindred animal -- pack rats.

Keepers maintained the giant male
elephant occupied while his cyst was
examined.

We had various highlights -- a close encounter with an elephant who was having a cyst tended to by his keepers, elephants cooling off like the lion seals we say in San Simeon, a mommy jaguar and her two cubs playing, a mommy flamingo feeding her babe, a polar bear who would not show his face as he was working hard to get at a treat in the rocks underwater, but showed us many times his cute furry behind and of course, the lions.  While the SD Zoo is famous for its koalas and pandas, neither were really cooperating and with the crazy crowds, we decided to be happy with all the cute stuff we saw!

Elephants cooling off.

Momma Jaguar and her babe (on the right).

I

Lioness appeared like she might be expecting.

Baby getting lunch from Momma Flamingo.

Polar bear hiney.  

Girls posing.

In the evening, much to JM's chagrin, we had a mini-party at our dry cleaner's loft.  Prior to heading to the Padres-Cubs game with dear friends, we had everyone over for pizza, salad & beer. It was really a lot of fun and wonderfully convenient as the beautiful baseball stadium is downtown and just blocks from where we stayed.

EC showing us what he's got prior to the game.

Girls had a blast catching up with friends who are boys (NOT boyfriends).  For me, the game was great fun, not because of the sport, but because the San Diego weather and ambiance are so agreeable.  A highlight of the evening was when our friend, KC, caught one of the promotional balls thrown out into the stands.  She later gave the ball to EM as she was close to catching it herself.  As you can imagine, EM treasured it as if it were gold.

Padres made the night extra special by winning the game!

KC shows us she's a baseball momma by catching the
Padres promotional ball flung into the crowd.

Kids spent most of the night trying to make it onto the
big screen.  Unfortunately, to no avail.

"Old" friends catching up.

Two happy girls at the happiest place on earth.

We left SD on Tuesday and headed to Anaheim for the final leg of our Calication.  After an exciting afternoon doing laundry and shipping treasured souvenirs home, we decided to head to the house of the mouse early since I knew work was going to be a little hectic on Wed. & Thurs. and I didn't want to miss time with the girls as we experienced Disney's California Adventure and Disneyland for the first time.

Luckily, our fabulous hotel found by JM is just a 10 minute walk to the entrance.  We decided to first check out the CA park as we all really wanted to see the new Cars Land and it did not disappoint.  Disney Imagineers are truly the masters.  This new area, based on the Cars movies, is incredible.  Every last detail is spot-on.  We were even able to ride on the Racers which the West Coast's version of Test Track back home.  We all decided the theming was out of control, but that we still preferred the speed of Test Track back home.

In Cars Land, the car characters drive
around talking to the guests.

After a spin on their unique ferris wheel and a stop at the fun Monsters ride, we decided to take the plunge & walk across the way to Disneyland.  It was hilarious to experience as the castle in Disneyland is MUCH SMALLER than what we've got in Orlando.  While I'd been here as a kid, I had no recollection of that.  The girls couldn't believe it.  They kept saying how it didn't look "Disney" to them.  And in fact, it does seem a bit out of scale.

The crowds were thicker at Disneyland so we decided be strategic and hit something which was unique to this park -- something we didn't have back home.  So we hit the Matterhorn, the alpine-themed roller coaster.  Still a fun ride even though it was opened in the 50s.  Afterwards, EM gave out.  It was 9pm and she was done.  So was I.

We walked home so everyone could get a good night's sleep.

They headed out early today back to the parks as I had to finish some work items.

You will hear from them later....

Geena Davis

P.S. We had our fourth star sighting of the trip at CA Adventure -- Geena Davis was being escorted around with her family.  She is SUPER TALL.  We of course had to Google it, and confirmed, that yes, indeed, she is 6-feet tall.

JM heading out on his racer.

The attention to detail in Cars Land is typical Disney.

We had a blast checking it all out.

Like father, like daughter.

Braving the big ferris wheel.