San Diego Trip, Day 15 (and 16)

Since Alton's mysterious illness (food poisoning? overexcitement?) yesterday had delayed our family plans to go to the San Diego Zoo, we were left with one day remaining in our vacation and this one big attraction to hit! We waited to see how he was feeling, then gave ourselves the go ahead for a Thursday morning visit to this legendary facility. My Aunt Coleen is a season ticket holder, so she was able to give us some free entry passes. Yay! Except that as soon as we arrived in San Diego two weeks ago, we realized that we'd left the passes at home in Oregon. And that we were not allowed to have mail delivered to our beach cottage rental. Whoops. Luckily, Andy's brother Zach had a key to our house, I sent him a crazily-detailed email about where exactly near our computer desk to find the tickets, and he sent them to my sister's house before she and her husband drove down for their visit with us at the Wild Animal Park. Whew!
With so many hands helping the tickets along to ours, we couldn't not see the San Diego Zoo, especially after my cousin Louise described it as "the best zoo I've ever been to." Intrigued but skeptical, since the Portland Zoo is no slouch and boasts one of the most long-standing successful elephant breeding programs in the country (although I'll bet that the SD Wild Animal Park is pretty close to THE best...they had four baby elephants roaming around!), but I was game to try it.
Wowza. The SD Zoo is huge! The size of Disneyland! It might be bigger. I was glued to my map so much while we were walking that I gave myself motion sickness by the end of the day. With this being our last full day in San Diego and needing to pack two large suitcases back at our little house, we could only spend the morning at the Zoo, so we tried to be as efficient as possible in selecting which animal enclosures to visit. We asked Alton as we arrived what he wanted to see at the zoo, and he said (randomly, because it's not like he's ever emphasized them before) turtles. Well, my son, if you want turtles, we'll give you turtles. We headed to the reptile section to gaze down upon the biggest freaking "turtles" you've ever seen: the Galapagos Tortoise.

Then it was on to another mammal that the Portland Zoo does not have: the koalas! (Or as Alton calls them: Ko-wawas.) Although I know they have a reputation for being somewhat scratchy when they are protecting their areas (who of us isn't, really?), they were so, so adorable to watch devouring their eucalyptus leaves, or sleeping incredibly soundly in a tree. A nearby placard said that they sleep so much of the day because eucalyptus are really hard for their stomachs to digest and basically require a lot of "downtime" from the koala to do so. As it was pretty early in the morning when we arrived, we saw a zoo employee lashing big loose branches of eucalyptus to the koala roosting trees, where the leaves of the branches would stick up to the level where the koalas were chilling and eating. One snoozing koala had rustling leaves just inches from his face...he blearily opened his eyes and regarded the blur of green in front of him, blinking sleepily in the overcast glare. The zoo employee finished her brisk branch knot-tying endeavor, and the next time I looked back at that koala, he had returned to his nap.

No trip to the zoo would be complete without seeing the rhino! Ridiculously huge and powerful. I can't remember what kind this guy is, but he looked like a triceratops, that's how armored and endowed of horn he was.

The giraffes also made for a fun gazing experience. I was really surprised to see that the SD Zoo animal enclosures often didn't have a lot of high-stakes fencing around them. Like, it would have taken very little for an overeager kid (or agile adult) to scale their wimpy wire fencing and be offering $14 churros to the zebras. I feel like with the Portland Zoo I am more used to seeing some distance between the people and the animals. It was nice to have the views of the animals here, and surprising that there was so much trust that the Zoo had in their patrons from all nations not to disturb their tenants.

Altie spies a big 'ol camel!

Heading toward the new-ish elephant exhibit, the Zoo has made a whole theme around fossils and prehistoric life on the West Coast, where they talk about what kinds of animals inhabited these areas, how the climate and environment have changed, etc. There was a faux wheel loader/bulldozer as part of this piece, which of course was the thing to which Alton immediately gravitated.

Funny little two-dimensional "people," where you could take your picture peeping through their faces! Andy tries a bespectacled archaeologist on for size...

...and of course once he sees Papa Bear do it, Baby Bear has to try, too.

I am a little embarrassed to say that, not knowing much about the San Diego Zoo ahead of time except to say that it was a nice and big zoo, I didn't know they had pandas! We all know how endangered this species is, and once I spotted them on the map I knew that seeing the pandas had to be part of our day's adventure. But we made the mistake of trying to walk "efficiently" through the park, hitting all of the exhibits that were on the way to the pandas as we made our path toward their station at the center of the zoo. We saw that there was a great big panda "research" exhibit, where we could hear a guide talking to a group and a huuuuge line snaking out of the doorway. We thought we were sunk, unable to stomach a long wait in the hot midday sun to see this snazzy research exhibit...when we noticed that there was a smaller panda viewing area off to the right behind it. Eureka! We walked over there and in a smaller, tree-filled enclosure there was a little panda bear all by herself, munching on leaves. Signs cautioned the viewers not to make abrupt or loud noises, because the pandas are easily startled, and the nearby zoo guide sidled over to us and began whispering to Alton and me about the little female bear, called Jin-Jin. She let us know that Jin-Jin was two years old (just like Alton!) and about to have her third birthday, where they would give her a "cake" that was actually a huge ice block with chunks of leaves and carrot and such frozen into it--a very desirable panda treat, apparently. We got to watch Jin-Jin climb her trees, take little mini-jogs around her enclosure, and scarf down those leaves that take forever to digest. Alton was totally stoked to hear about her "cupcake," and when we passed by the Panda-looza of a gift store that was nearby, he called allll of the stuffed pandas inside "Jin-Jin." Even now that we are home, he tells me about Jin-Jin's cupcake and the carrots that will be inside. Aww.

After our solid three-plus hours of zoo exploration, it was time to grab an inordinately-expensive lunch and head out of the exit to the Balboa Park steam train! The steam train, zoo entrance, and 100-year-old Balboa Park carousel are happily all in the same area near the zoo parking lot, making it very easy for tired families like us to stumble over to the train and hop aboard to catch a welcome breeze on our loop around the track. I turned around in my seat to take a picture of the guys: Daddy Andy looking tan and happy, and Alton completely mesmerized by his ride.

We had a blast on the carousel, too, and once again were able to hop on an animal that remained stationary for the ride so that Alton could absorb everything without the up 'n down motion.

Home and nap, because Andy and I had to pack suitcases while the little guy was asleep, and we had big plans for evening. For our last night in town, we had decided to introduce Alton to a restaurant that is a particular favorite of Andy's and mine: the Melting Pot! This is a fondue chain whose locations we have frequented the whole time we've been together. There is nothing like sharing a night out over an hours-long dinner of four courses that you get to dip, cook, and savor. We had hesitated on taking Alton in the past because this is not exactly a kid-friendly place: no children's menu, an electric burner taking up the center of the table, bubbling pots of broth and cheese on top of that, and sharp pointy fondue forks everywhere. We decided that he would be able to handle it, and since we were on vacation with no babysitters, he'd have to! He is not an especially grabby kid, listens well to direction, and garners us slightly astounded compliments on how surprisingly behaved in restaurants he is for a two-year-old. He was ready for the big guns.

We did, however, bring along one surefire joyful distraction for him: a can of apple juice. He never gets juice to just drink, only water, so juice is like a dessert for him and he'll choose it over anything: cupcakes, pizza, cash.... We had the juice and asked the waiter for a straw (another fun dining item to send him over the moon), and as we waited for that, he excitedly informed us that his dinner would go "here" (patting the cool granite surface of the table for emphasis), and his apple juice would go "HERE."

The first course arrived, which was a cheddar cheese fondue, and Alton surprised us by not being very interested in it! He happily ate the cubes of bread, chunks of apple and bits of carrot that served as dipping items for the cheese, but he wasn't terribly focused on scraping up the cooled cheese fondue that we'd drizzled on his plate, and we had no problems with him reaching for the hot pot, either. Great news on the safety front and hey, more cheese for us grown-ups!

We also realized later that we'd selected a great time for our inaugural fondue dinner with the little guy. With an early flight to catch in the morning, we wanted to make sure we got home at a decent hour, so we made reservations for their 5p.m. dinner seating, and it also happened to be a Thursday, which meant that it was a much quieter day and time for the Melting Pot than the Friday/Saturday 8p.m. slot that Andy and I head for when we have a babysitter at home. Good note for next time! Alton did great eating little bits from all the courses, then on our way out (after receiving compliments from other diners about what a good little boy he is) one of the hostesses offered to blow him up a helium balloon! It was his best friend until we arrived home and it revealed itself to have a slow leak. Ah, well.

The Last Day!
Our "last day" in San Diego consisted of getting up at 4:45a.m. to get dressed, wake Alton, collapse the crib, drive to the rental car return, ride the shuttle to the airport, check in, fly to Sacramento, get on another plane, fly to Portland, get on the Max light rail, ride to Hillsboro, get picked up by Uncle Zach and his big truck (thanks, Zach!), drive home, then breathe a sigh of relief that we'd arrived. Happily, this was a Friday, so we had Saturday and Sunday at home to detox and come down from our vacation high before joining the real world on Monday morning. We had a really wonderful time on our trip, surprised ourselves with all of the friends and sights we were able to see in our two weeks there, and were extremely pleased with all of the plans we made. Minerva was glad to be home, we collected our plants from Matt and Di (thanks for watering them, guys!), and pizza was had by all. The End.
Alton on the Max train on our way home.