San Diego Trip - Day Three (The Zoo)

DAY THREE

I’m an idiot. A moron. Not the brightest bulb in the box. A few fries short of a Happy Meal. More on that later.

My third day in San Diego started with a hotel switch. I was staying on my own money at a Quality Inn, in the not very affluent section of town. With the work convention starting on Friday evening, I switched to the ritzy Marriott Hotel and Marina, located next to the convention center on the bay. Missouri tax dollars at their finest. I opted for a cab for the transit between hotels and had what I would say is the fastest service imaginable. I called the cab company from my hotel room, with bags already packed and ready to go. As soon as I hung up the phone, I grabbed my luggage, went down the elevator four floors, walked out into the lobby, and the cab was waiting outside the front door.

After arriving at the Marriott, it was like night and day. For one, I could speak English at the check-in desk and not feel like I was speaking a foreign language. The Quality Inn staff spoke Spanish as their primary language. My room is on the 18^th floor, which is what I wanted, something as high as possible for the best view. Unfortunately, the view out my window faces the downtown area, and not out over the bay and the ocean. But I can see Petco Park – home of the San Diego Padres – about four blocks away from my window. That should be great the next few days when they have home games with fireworks after each game.

After checking in and getting settled, I headed out for the famous San Diego Zoo. It is an extremely large zoo and has a number of various animals and species. However, it would have been nice if some of those animals and species would have actually been on display. The koala bears were the first stop and there were a number of them out. Pretty boring though, as they sleep about 20 hours a day (my heros!). I then went to the elephants just in time to see them being led inside so their keepers could clean, and next to them the Rhino was sleeping and looked to be dead.

I made my way from there to the bear and lion area, only to discover one bear and no lions. Then it was off to the monkey area – never a disappointment. The gorillas were in their afternoon rest mode, so they weren’t very active but still funny to watch them watching us. One of them was sitting on a log with his back to the viewing area almost as if he were doing it on purpose. Every so often he would turn his head and sneak a peek to see if people were still watching him, then quickly turn back around and sit in a statuesque pose facing away from us. It was almost as if he was deliberately not turning around so we could see him. The orangutan were next and were hilarious. There was one baby and a mom and dad who were wrestling. The baby eventually went off on his own playing with branches of food, while the mom and dad continued to “wrestle.” I say wrestle, but it looked like maybe they were getting frisky. At one point, the male was on his back, legs spread and wrapped around the body of the female, with his hands on her head, holding it down in his crotch region. I’m not sure what monkeys consider foreplay to be, but there were a lot of parents blushing when their kids were asking what the monkeys were doing.

I moved on from there to the tiger and hippo area, only to find another missing animal. There was no tiger anywhere to be found. The hippo was there, just chillin’ in the water and was right up against the display glass, which was very cool. He kept opening his eyes and looking at all the kids tapping the glass in front of him, almost as if it was an expected but irritable part of his day. Next was the panda exhibit, which was very cool. There were only two on display, but they were eating and active and were really cool to watch. From there I went to the Polar Bear Plunge, only to find no plunging and no polar bear. I even went and got a quick snack - $7 for an ice-cream bar and water, ouch – and then came back to double check and still no polar bear.

Next was surprisingly one of the better areas, the horn and hoff mesa, that featured a lot of takins, deer, gazelle and giraffes. The takins are surprisingly cool to watch. They have them at the St. Louis zoo as well. They have a body like a cow, with the head that looks somewhat like that of a horse and tiny horns on top of their heads, and long, thick fur, and for some reason are always fun to watch move around. I got to the giraffe area in time to watch them being fed and quickly running around to be first in line at the food area. Another disappointing area was the cat canyon area, that was supposed to contain various wild cats, but contained nothing but empty cages.

I had now circled the entire zoo, and since I was back to where I started, I went back to the elephant and rhino area. With their play space cleaned, there were now three elephants walking around and doing their thing, so my decision to circle back to this area was a good move. One was washing himself, using his trunk to drink water then flipping his trunk back over his body and spraying the water on himself. Such a normal and simple daily task for an elephant that was funny to sit there and watch. The rhino was also awake and active, just walking around his large play area. It was amazing to watch an animal that weighs close to 4,000 pounds just walking around.

Before leaving, I stopped by to catch the sea lion show. Like Sea World a few days earlier, it was fun to watch the interaction of the trainers and the animals – although these trainers didn’t wear full-body diving suits. Overall, the zoo was just average. The paths and directions around the place were very complicated and hard to follow. I could never tell exactly where I was or how to get from one place to the next. I just had to walk around and hope for the best. The lack of animals in certain areas was disappointing as well. They had a wide variety of endangered animals and animals you don’t see at other zoos, but the lack of some of the popular animals (lions, tigers and bears, oh my), was a bit disappointing. They do have a ton of various birds around the whole place, but I’m not a big bird watching fan, so that didn’t appeal to me that much. Anyone from St. Louis, take pride, as I would rate the St. Louis zoo higher than the San Diego zoo. It may not have the variety of animals San Diego has, but it’s easier to find your way around and of course, the price is right.

After leaving the zoo, I decided to walk around Balboa Park, the area immediately around the zoo in the middle of the city. It houses a number of different museums and gardens, but I decided not to visit the museums as the cost for admissions was higher than the satisfaction I would have gotten from the actual museum. There just weren’t any museums that focused on things that would have been of interest to me. It was neat to walk around the park area and see the buildings though. Many of them had very intricate details etched in the buildings and the architecture reminded me of a lot of the buildings I saw when visiting Barcelona a few years ago.

From there it was back to the hotel and a shower, where I realized what a complete and total idiot I am. Or should I say reaffirmed what a complete and total idiot I am. After getting sun burn on my forehead the first day at Sea World, I figured I had conquered that problem by buying a hat. After the trip to the zoo, in which I wore the hat the whole day, I discovered that I should have bought I hat that had a bill in the back as well. I was wearing a regular t-shirt, which allowed the back of my neck to get completely fried. It got more red and burnt then even my forehead did two days earlier. Sad part was I actually had a small, travel size bottle of sun tan lotion with me. When I say with me, I don’t just mean in my hotel room with me on the trip, I mean it was in the pocket of my shorts with me at the zoo all day. Did I put it on at any point? Nope. Does that make me twice as dumb as normal? Possibly three times as dumb as normal. I just didn’t think about and it didn’t bother me until I got back to the hotel and went to take a shower. The minute the water hit my shoulders, I realized what a moron I am.

After a quick shower, it was off to the historic gaslamp district of San Diego for some dinner. There area about a gazillion restaurants in this area specializing in every different type of food imaginable. I settled on a simple Irish pub near the baseball stadium and ate outside before going back to the hotel and walking along the piers and bay area. While there, I ran into a couple of people I know from the convention. It was great to finally see familiar faces, but I have to admit I was a bit disappointed in being sidetracked from my plans to visit the park behind the marina to see the sunset, but what can you do? The rest of the night was spent sitting in the hotel visiting with a group of people from the convention until the wee hours of the night. At that point, I realized the fun and vacation part of the trip would have to be put on hold temporarily as the work part of the trip kicked in for the next few days.