« San Diego Zoo & Wild Animal Park: Warthogs | Main | Some Facts About Africa »

May 31, 2005

72 Hours In San Diego

Shane and I wanted to get away for the weekend without spending too much money. Since we have a yearly membership with the San Diego Zoo and Wild Animal Park, we decided one of the most affordable three-day weekends we could do would be to do the following:

• Drive down to San Diego
• Stay at a Starwood Hotel on points
• Spend the weekend at the San Diego Zoo & Wild Animal Park
• Eat & Drink well but cheaply

I picked up Shane at the airport in San Jose at about 3pm, and we immediately headed out of the Bay Area on Highway 101 towards Los Angeles. With minimal stopping, we made it to hotel in San Diego around midnight. We checked in and crashed.

The next morning we woke up, showered, packed a lunch and drove the 8 minute drive to the San Diego Zoo. Shane had misplaced his membership card, but luckily we had the free passes that came along with our membership, so we still both got in for free. It was supposed to be partly cloudy in the morning and sunny in the afternoon but it did exactly the opposite. I wore the Samsung pedometer that I got at CTIA in New Orleans a couple months ago, and by the end of the day, it had registered over 18000 steps - that's about eight and a half miles.

After the park closed, Shane and I walked over through Balboa Park, past the Prado theater, the manicured gardens and reflecting pools filled with waterlilies and ducks. We stopped at the Prado restaurant, where numerous weddings were going on. We walked right into the Prado lounge and had one of the best mojitos ever, as well as some excellent chips & salsa and a pair of mahi mahi tacos. The bill was a total of $30, but we were quite full, regardless. Exhausted, we walked back to the car and drove back to the hotel. We considered going in the hot tub, but it was a bit crowded. Instead, we watched National Treasure on TV, which was amusing, while we drank a nice bottle of pinot noir (David Bruce '97) and ate brie and rye toast until all hours.

The next morning we were up and off to the Wild Animal Park in Escondido. The weather was hot and sunny, and we ended up with a bit of a sunburn. We noticed, not for the first time, that both parks attract a lot of local wildlife as well - great blue herons, egrets, bunnies, squirrels and mule deer. As we walked along in a forested area near the Heart of Africa, a very young spotted fawn ran in front of us and charged up the hillside. While we were still gawking in its wake, it came tearing back in the other direction again. We've both never seen one so little, or alone. While the zoo had been busy but not crazy, the wild animal park was a bit overcrowded. After walking another 7 miles around the park, we went to take the train around the large open enclosures, only to find a 2 hour line. We decided it wasn't worth the trouble - we'd seen it all before. Not that it's not a fantastic exhibit, it's just that we were already tired, hot, and not feeling like dealing with upset and angry tourists and their bawling kids for 2 hours to get on it (especially considering the park closed in 2 hours and it was a 50 minute ride so we weren't even guaranteed a spot!)

Instead we left around 4pm and went back to take showers and go out on the town. We dressed up a bit and then went down to Old Town. We got a reservation at the Old Town Mexican Cafe and then walked around the historical site. It was a nice warm, night. We visited the apothecary shops and the mexican trinket carts before heading back for a mojito and getting seated for dinner. The mole we had wasn't bad - but the tamales and chiles relleno were excellent. The mixed drinks were strong but not particularly well-made, but they had lots of great beers on tap and by bottle - including two different Dos Equis brews - yumyum! We left with as much leftover food as we had managed to eat, the portions were huge!

After dinner it was another night of movies and a yummy room service dessert - a sweet cinnamon tortilla with fried apples and cinnamon and vanilla ice cream.

In the morning, we woke up and packed to leave. Instead of stopping for breakfast, we used the delicious handmade corn tortilla leftovers and made mole-tamale-chile-relleno tacos. We got home with very little traffic, despite hitting LA at midday on a holiday.

All in all, San Diego was great fun - and all for basically the cost of the gasoline to get there.

Our Favorite Activities

San Diego Zoo & Wild Animal Park
Browse Old Town
Walk Around Coronado Island
Dine In The Gaslamp District

Our Favorite Restaurants & Bars

Prado Lounge
Old Town Mexican Cafe
The Beach

Our Favorite Hotels

The W San Diego
The Sheraton at the Marina
The Sheraton San Diego Hotel, Mission Valley

Posted by sorsha at May 31, 2005 5:22 PM