San Diego and the Zoo

Chris and I had been given two free passes to the Zoo when we bought tires for his car.  What better time to use them than on our anniversary trip to one of my favorite cities, San Diego?

We used Hotwire to get a hotel room and got a good deal at the Best Western in Hotel Circle.  It's really retro outside.  It reminded me of places we would stay when we were kids.  Inside,the decor was supposed to be tropical, but it was pure cheese.  The bed was comfortable and the bathroom was clean.  They had coffee; weak tea-like coffee but coffee nonetheless.  Free WiFi  I don't require much so this was good.  We DID have two problems.  The first thing happened when they needed a deposit on the credit card, so I handed them one I had just cleared a decent amount on.  Declined?  hmm, I gave her a different card, because I did not want to hassle with it and that one was accepted.  When I got back to the room I brought up the account and found  that the amount had cleared  and was being held on this card AND the second one as well.  I am glad I had simply cleared the cards and not been counting on them to pay for the vacation.  It would have taken a serious bite out of the fun.  The second thing is really a bit of advice.  NEVER ask a twenty-something for good places to eat.  She waxed rhapsodic about the Cheesecake Factory.  Nothing wrong with the Cheesecake Factory, but I was looking for some good local cuisine.  I know Anthony's, but Chris isn't big on seafood. They gave us a coupon for the cafe in the hotel and as it had been a long day and a long drive AND we had started the trip with an outstanding meal at Yuca's on Hollywood, we opted for diner at the hotel.  It was pretty good and relatively inexpensive.   They had a bar connected to it so I ordered not one but TWO drinks.  They were quite potent and tasty.  Service was good.

Breakfast at the hotel  was not as good.  I think the food was mostly microwaved, but the waitress was a sweetheart. She kept us laughing  I just don't like nuclear fried bacon.  The coffee wasn't any better than what they had in the rooms.  

We decided against taking the proffered shuttle to the Zoo ( the girl at the front desk told me parking was "like $15 at the zoo- it was free)  The shuttle left the hotel at 8:30 and came back at 5.  Too long a day for us, so we decided even if parking WERE 15 bucks it would be worth it  to have the car right there if we wanted to leave.  The passes included bus tours and the Sky Way. It was a perfect day to be outdoors, not too warm and not too cold. There was no wind!  We decided to take the bus that you can get on on off to see the animals, rather than the guided tour. We opted out of the Sky Way.  One of the things I remember about the guided tour is that people will get up and lean over you if the animal they guide is featuring is on the other side of the bus.  It sucks having some stranger hang over you to try to take a photo of an animal that you can barely see as the bus slides by the exhibit.  We looked on the map and decided which animals we really wanted to see.  LA has a pretty good Zoo and we went to the one in San Francisco when we were there. I love giraffes, and the San Diego Zoo has a feed the giraffe event. It was fun to watch the kids feed to giraffes. We saw the pandas and just past the pandas they had a sake tasting area!  Lovely if you enjoy cold sake, which I do.  There are sake's made to be enjoyed cold and I had had a few of these before.  We saw the polar bear exhibit, which was great, but the bears were not playful and ignored the keeper attempt to get them interested in playing.  One bear looked at the ball that was tossed with a distinct "you threw it YOU get it" look.

We were pretty tired when we left the Zoo and went back to the room to rest and regroup.  I have already talked about the restaurant we found on Yelp, Pomegranate.  I am already talking to friends about going back for a day trip!

We checked  out of the hotel and went to a local place in Hotel Circle for breakfast.  The food was unremarkable and the coffee was weak.  I need to find a decent place for coffee down there!  We cashed in some two dollar lottery winners at a local liquor store and had a lot of fun going back in about five times as we won a dollar of two with each new ticket.  I don't know if the counter man at the liquor store was amused or annoyed.  The rain was just starting to come in as we drove home.  We ended our trip where it began, at Yuca's on Hollywood.  I needed a burrito, and a decent cup of coffee.