San Diego was the final stop before we headed for Yuma. With our passes we had a free day at both Sea World and the Zoo. The first night we got into San Diego we found our hotel, which turned out to be a dump-- it took five trips back to the front desk and three different rooms to get one where everything worked in it. After we got settled we wandered through Little Italy looking for an affordable place to eat. No luck... we headed down the block to Denny's.
The next morning we got up and headed for Sea World. Naturally I was very excited. It was a nice day, not too hot and not too crowded. We managed to catch all the main shows that we wanted to, and wandered through all the exhibits. We lucked out walking past the Orca window as there was a lady with two seeing-eye dogs in training that came by the window and caught the attention of the three whales in the exhibit. The whales were so fascinated by the dogs, and we watching their everymove. The calf in the tank tried a few times to vocalize with the dogs. It was a great experience to watch them interact, and we got some great photos (below).
The first show we watched was a dolphin show... and man we got sucked in! During the show they brought a family of a husband and wife with their young girl to the front to interact with the dolphins. The woman started helping out and tripped in front of the whole audience and just about cracked her head open. Then later in the show they gave the parents a disposable camera and asked them to photograph their daughter as she fed a dolphin. The mom sat up on a bridge above the tank to get a good shot, and next thing you know she fell over the side into the water. The trainers all acted very surprised and the woman was splashing around and panicking. Next thing you know a dolphin came along and started pushing the woman around the tank. Well, it turns out she was a trainer and the whole thing was staged... it sure fooled us!
The rest of the day was great. The show that did with Shamu was amazing, with some great special effects including moving video screens, and a great story behind the act. Other than that, Kelly really enjoyed seeing the Manatees, the shark exhibit was neat, and while we were watching the walrus he got a little excited. It was funny, he seemed to be a little shy about it, but it was hard to hide his excitement!
The next day we headed to the Zoo. We started our day with a 45 minute tour around the park on a big double decker bus. The rest of the day was spent on foot wandering through the park. There were a few interesting animals that we hadn't seen, and we both enjoyed the monkeys, and the hippos, and the giraffes, some of the big ticket items. We finished the day with a ride in the sky buckets going over the park. We left in the late afternoon and headed straight for Yuma. It was a very nice drive through the start of the desert, and we got in about 9:30 or so. It was sure nice to see Gil and Susan at the end of our two week epic drive down the west coast.