San Diego

Reaching our or most southern destination of San Diego we spent the morning exploring the World Famous San Diego Zoo. Although it had a wide variety of animals it was hardly worthy of the world famous title. Aaron finally got to see the Grizzly Bear he had been waiting for, even if though play peak-a-boo from their cave. From elephants, vultures, polar bears, hippos, gazelles, snakes… flamingos, sloth bears…koalas etc and a variety of plants we saw just about everything there was.
Moving on to Sea World we saw the Orca show including the one named Shamu. With the back flips, jumps, splashing the crowd and pushing the trainers around the seven orcas put a great display.
Following lunch we work our way through the aquariums, tanks etc of various fish, sharks, eels from around the world. We touched the sting rays and then went to see the seal show. As the crowd gathered, a ‘cleaner’ named Biff put on a very hilarious show at times picking on the incoming crowd. The seal show included a tamed otter and two seals. The show was comedy taking the mickey out of TV shows while show casing the talents of the seals and otter.
Continuing around the park we went on the motion simulator ride thought the Arctic then went and saw the polar bears, walrus, belugas and manatees from above and below the water. In the chilly penguin enclosure we saw the various species, including the larger emperor penguins. Although they don’t fly they do ‘fly’ through the water with grace.
Seeing the pod of dolphins been fed by the numerous handlers while couples were separated for training enabled an impromptu show of the dolphins performing back flips etc.
A look again at the orca this time from below and up close really highlighted their huge size. Leaving San Diego heading north this time on the I5 began more like a 12 lane parking lot then slowly go moving the further from the city we got. Past the military areas of the Navy and Marine Corps (with the hovercraft and amphibious tanks) we reached the motel to pick up our bags and head further north in Hollywood.
After checking into the motel right behind the Kodak Theater we went for tea and then out onto Hollywood Boulevard into the crowds to get a taste of what Saturday would be all about.