San Diego Zoo & Seaport Village

We woke up again to overcast skies, but the forecast was much better than it was on Friday and Saturday. Since the plan is to head up to Anaheim tomorrow, we wanted to take advantage of the day and hit up the San Diego Zoo. We figured we didn’t need a beautiful day to check out some cool animals!

We opened the zoo at 10 a.m., arriving to a mostly empty parking lot and quiet pathways. Jay said that he has never seen the zoo that empty, but then again, he’d never been that early before. :)

It was a bit chilly so we grabbed some coffee/hot chocolate at one of the vendors and we set out to explore the zoo. One thing is for sure: It is a big, nice zoo. The following is really only a sampling of what we saw.

This guy was definitely “grooming” his mate there (it looked like he was eating bugs off of him), but it resembled the act of kissing him/her on the head so it was really quite cute! And fascinating.

Maybe it was the time of day, or perhaps the cool weather, but a lot of the animals were sleeping during our trip. Lazy bums! Especially all of the pandas. The red pandas, the “regular” pandas—the cute little baby, too!

Giraffes are really freaking cool. Apparently there are times when you can actually feed them, but they weren’t offering it when we were there. Next time!

When Nora seemed extra cranky, we tried to force a nap in the stroller, but she was NOT having it. So if you happened to be at the San Diego Zoo today and heard a child screaming bloody murder while her mother nonchalantly pushed a stroller around… I’m sorry. It was one of those situations when she didn’t know what she needed… but I DID. *sigh* Toddlers. Instead, we pushed our way through the rest of the zoo knowing that we’d have to get her back home for a snooze.

Oh, and a funny part about the stroller-nap catastrophe. Nora was periodically yelling “OUT!” but it sounded suspiciously like “OUCH!” (I really looked like Mother of the Year, here.) A lady looks at me with concern and goes, “Ouch??” and I was like, “No, OUT.”  *cue gleaming smile while my child screams*  Ah, so fun.

Jay is a member of the zoo and told us before we went that his favorite animal is the meerkat. Well, go figure, but Nora loved the meerkats, too! She was thrilled by them, we stood and watched them for quite some time.

We spent a good 3.5 hours there before we called it quits. The sun came out, too! We thought about grabbing lunch before we left, but given Nora’s sleepiness and her lunchtime performance at Karl Strauss yesterday, we decided instead to get some takeout on the way back to Jay’s. We got to enjoy lunch in peace and then put Nora down for a nap. We went to a place called Grant’s, which is basically a little deli/store. My sandwich was delicious, so it was a good decision all around!

During Nora’s nap, Jay took me to the airport to pick up our rental car for our trip tomorrow up to Anaheim (and then on to L.A.). I freaking hate rental car companies, by the way. I had to wait in line for 30-40 minutes just to get to an attendant, and then he was a pushy salesman who wouldn’t take no for an answer on anything without a hard fight on my part. Just shut up and give me the car keys, man. But I digress.

When Nora was awake again and we headed back out, we went to Seaport Village to walk around. It was a bit chilly down by the water but it was a nice evening.

There’s a guy down there that apparently stacks rocks into different formations every single day. Pretty impressive.

We told Nora that riding up on Daddy’s shoulders made her tall like a giraffe. She was pleased. :)

We ended up grabbing dinner at a place that was located OVER the water. I didn’t even bother to know what the place was called, actually. None of us were particularly hungry—still full from lunch—so we ordered a few appetizers to split and even that was too much. What we had was good but nothing to write home about.

On the way back to Jay’s, we stopped by to see his new office space that he’s leasing for his company. Nora ran around there for a bit and then we came back to put her to bed! Another California day in the books. Tomorrow… Disney!