California Roadtrip - Escondido and San Diego

SAN DIEGO

Flower gardens at the San Diego Temple

... and a beautiful Pohutikawa tree, (NZ Christmas tree) that reminds me of Christmas in NZ!! 

Our next accomodation was in Escondido, in San Diego County.  This was actually a 'Vacation Rental By Owner' (VRPO).  I was referred to this by Kenna, and we were able to find accomodation in New York from this website, so used it to find something in California.  This self-contained apartment was a great price with the use of a pool and tennis court. It was especially good to do some washing as it was now a week since we had left Denver.  Getting to Escondido took longer than we expected however, with the I-5 freeway moving at a snails pace for ages.  All six lanes, one direction, moving at 20mph!!  Not much fun, except we were often afforded grand views of the ocean and beaches with the many palm trees.  No doubt we are in California!! 


5 lanes across, going sooo slow!!

We finally arrived in mid afternoon, and Brooke, our host was so welcoming.  As it turned out, they were also LDS!!  Brooke took us to a small mexican place for some food.  I have always loved Mexican food, but my experience of it has been limited to supermarket Taco kits, burritos and what has been on the menu at 'Cha-Chi's' in Adelaide.  Here we entered a different world.  The cafe was very humble in appearance and the hand written menu board made us truely feel like foreigners!  We didn't understand a thing on it! Thankfully Brooke knew what to order, and so we sampled four different soft corn tacos (Street Tacos $1 each) without any cheese or sour cream, but with spices, raw onion and sauces using beef, pulled pork and chicken.  It was so very delicious topped off with lemonade, real lemonade made with limes and lemons!! So yum!! 

Authentic mexican food!  Street tacos for $1each

We then hurried to get ready and headed to the San Diego Temple, about a half hours drive away, to catch the last baptistry session before the Temple closed for 2 weeks maintenance.  Wow! Wow! What an amazingly beautiful Temple. It looks like a big white castle! This was what Sarah wanted to do in America.  For a long time now, she has admired the pictures of this Temple and wanted to see it in person.  San Diego is also where the famous Zoo and SeaWorld are, so we were able to fit it all in.  What a great experience, as we all participated in the session, with Tom this time, completing some male family names.  Afterwards, we spent quite some time in the grounds taking photos.  The tricky thing is, when the Temple is sooo large, is to try and fit everything into the picture.  But we managed to get some lovely shots between us! 

 

On the way home, we stopped off at the beach again, then once back, the kids enjoyed the pool while Rick watched some TV & I continued a book I was reading! (That I picked up for a quarter in Boulder!)

What a decision!!

I think the beach as a whole won!

Sunday, 24 July 2011

The local chapel was about 5 minutes down the road, and tired as we were, we made it at 9.00am.  It's so nice to visit different places.  People are friendly wherever you go.  The unique thing about this ward, was that it was split and combined with another only a few weeks ago, so there are many who still don't know each other.  Our Australian accents did get us a bit of attention, but its a small world when you meet people who know people from Adelaide!  Crazy!

We headed back 'home' for a snooze, and then were called to join Brooke & Gary for dinner with their family.  Brooke had made Mexican with the purchases from the Cantina the day before.  I will never eat Mexican the same way again.  What she included, was so delicious and it was very nice to be included in their family Sunday.  Gary had a couple of nephews and their families staying also, so it was a big group.  Thanks Brooke & Gary!!

Monday, 25 July 2011

After much deliberation, we decided to go to SeaWorld in San Diego first. On the way, Tom suddenly gives a whoop-whoop!  He had just received a text message from our Bishop to say (his mission papers were submitted just prior to going to EFY) his mission call had been assigned and was being posted from Salt Lake the following day!!! How exciting to think it has been decided!!  We will now just wait and see what day it shows up at Bishop's.  We may have to forgoe our plans for home and return quickly instead!  Tom's mission call dominated our thoughts for most of the day!

The famous SeaWorld has many great animal attractions and shows.  Soon after we arrived ,we were able catch a show featuring 'Shamu' the ... whale.  What a spectacular sight when Shamu first jumps high into the air.  He is beautifully black and white.  Such clean lines and so clever!!

Once again, we looked out for different shows and were greatly entertained by the clever seals, otters, and dogs that performed obedience tricks and stunts.  The dolphin show also featured whales and acrobatic performances.  It was clever chorography, but I felt a bit disapointed the dolphins weren't featured a bit more.  We spent a lovely day at Seaworld and covered it all!  It's a great place, however, I still think SeaWorld, Queensland tops it, just a tich more impressive.

We didn't stay for the evening fireworks, we felt we had seen enough and our stomach's were demanding attention.  So we headed back to Escondido, and searched for a 'Sizzler' which was Tom's pick.  However, the Sizzler no longer existed according to our GPS.  We just couldn't find it, so instead found a Greek Cafe and enjoyed some 'real' food as opposed to fast food take away.  Nice. One thing we have noticed in California are the many Eucalyptus Gum Trees that grow here, causing a deep sense of nostalgia with us.  Once back, the kids swam again, so a nice finish to the day.  At this point, we are all feeling weary, but a good sleep does make all the difference.

A Californian Gum Tree!

Tuesday, 26 July 2011



The meandering Zoo pathways are green and lush, beautiful!



This morning we clean up and packed up, to stay in La Jolla near the beach.  But first, we headed for the world famous San Diego Zoo.  I have heard alot about this zoo, and I was not disappointed.  It really is a beautiful zoo, set in the hills of San Diego it has so many meandering pathways with inviting enclosures.  We spent the entire day wandering around it.  Just lovely!  There were a couple of great highlights we enjoyed, the first one being the Gorillas as they posed and performed for us.  They really do have distinct personalities.  We especially loved watching a mother interact with her baby.  They were really playful together, so cute! 

These playful Gorillas kept us entertained for ages!

A baby Hippopotamus being protected by mum.

  But the glass enclosure gave us a great view!

 The other, we all agreed was the Polar Bears.  Apparently this is a fairly new exhibit, but there were two Polar Bears play fighting for ages, one dominating the other until finally, the submissive one had had enough. The great thing about this enclosure is the underwater viewing, so you can see the bears swimming and playing underwater. 

This was in fact a great feature throughout the zoo, being able to see under the water as well as above.  We found the kangaroos, two small Reds, in a relatively small dirt and rock enclosure, and felt sorry for them. Likewise, when we found a Kookaburra in a fairly small cage with not a gum tree in sight.  The Koala's however, had plenty of gum leaves in a lovely setting and of course, attracted lots of viewers.  They were young and do look very cute! We really enjoyed this day, with the only mishap being when my camera was knocked out of Tom's hand, landing on the lense.  It's playing up, sometimes working and sometimes not.  Disappointing, hopefully I can still get some more mileage out of it..

Chani & Sarah 'riding the bear!'

'Safari' Rick!

An ice-cream pie

Michelle, pretty relaxed this side of the fence!

Just resting those weary feet!

 We stayed overnight in La Jolla not far from the beach front in a local inn.  Unfortunately, we were so tired, we didn't take advantage of the beach as we thought. And the following morning called for an early start as we spend our last full day in Southern California heading north to Hollywood and Universal Studios. 

Some of La Jolla Beach, San Diego

PS.  As yet, we still have not had any more news regarding Tom's call.. but do expect it to arrive by the end of the week,