California Spring Fling, 2001 - Days 8 & 9 About This Page:

[Little Mermaid]

Saturday, April 14th and Sunday, April 15th

We were definitely in a vacation state of mind, because once again, we weren't moving very fast when we woke up this morning. We went to the continental breakfast included in our room rate, and were pleasantly surprised to find it was a very elaborate continental breakfast…more like a buffet, in fact. They had sausage, eggs, muffins, bagels, doughnuts, cereal, fresh fruit and fruit salad. It was quite tasty, and we pigged out!

We planned to arrive at the San Diego Zoo right at opening (10 a.m.), but when we got there, we discovered that they had, in fact, opened at 9 a.m. Oh well! Admission for the four of us for the zoo was quite pricey…$68, which included a small discount. We did the 35-minute narrated tram tour as soon as we arrived. Mark was bored silly, but Stephanie and Greg enjoyed it. I had last visited the San Diego Zoo in 1980 when I spent a month in California after high school graduation. I was very impressed with the zoo at that time, but it just didn't hold the same thrill for me on this visit (and I'm a zoo person). It could have been because the exhausting pace earlier in the week at DL/DCA had worn me out and I had a sinus headache, but my wagon was definitely dragging! The San Diego Zoo is quite hilly, and quite BIG, and after a few hours of walking around, I was ready to go (as was Mark…his wagon was also dragging!). Stephanie's "must-sees" for the zoo were the Pandas and the Koalas, and I must say, those Panda Bears are very cute! We ate lunch at one of the counter service establishments at the zoo. Greg and I cheated and purchased kids meals for ourselves, because they came in these cute souvenir buckets (and, Greg and I were still fairly full from our breakfast pig-out). We did the Skyway tour, which I found pretty lame…all we could see were the tops of the trees. We left the zoo around 3:00 p.m. (not soon enough for me), and headed east on I-8 in search of….MOUNTAINS!

I had scoped out a scenic little town in the mountains east of San Diego called Julian. On the map, it didn't look very far, but in reality, it took us almost 3 hours to reach it! The roads up the mountain were perilous to a non-mountain person like myself (I was driving…Greg loves to look for wildlife, so I agreed to drive…aren't I just too nice?), and by the time we reached Julian (elev. 3,500 ft) , I was ready for a drink! We had planned to continue further north higher up into the mountains, but it was already almost 6 p.m., and we realized it would take a LOT longer than we expected. So, we opted to cut our scenic drive short, and found an alternate route to get us back to Carlsbad. My nerves were shot at the point (not to mention that my sinus headache was morphing into a full-blown sinus infection), so I told Greg that HE would have the pleasure of driving us down the mountain. Coming down the mountain was equally as perilous, and after about 30 minutes, I noticed that Greg was gripping the steering wheel considerably tighter than he had been when he started…white knuckles and all. I was feeling a bit evil [img]images/icons/wink.gif[/img] , so I led the kids in a rousing sing-along of "She'll be Coming Down the Mountain". Greg was not amused! Hehehe. [img]images/icons/wink.gif[/img]

We did eventually make it back down the mountain in one piece, and stopped for dinner at the TGI Fridays right across from the Carlsbad Flower Fields. We had a pretty entertaining (albeit incompetent) waiter at TGI Fridays who felt the need to share his life story with us. He had recently moved to California from Ohio, because he missed all his H.S. friends who were going to college in California. How interesting…NOT.

After dinner, we returned to the hotel and got the kids to bed. I was starting to feel REALLY bad at this point…I had a sinus headache almost all day, and was starting to feel achy and extremely tired. I should have spent the evening packing up for our departure the next day, but I couldn't keep my eyes open.

I woke up at 4:00 a.m. on Sunday morning, with a blinding headache and some serious chills. I dug out the thermometer (yes, I carry a virtual hospital with me when I travel), and discovered I had a temperature of 102 degrees. Oh goody. I knew I felt bad, but I didn't realize just HOW bad. I took 2 Sinus Motrin, lay back down and prayed to God to let me feel better. I knew Greg would have his hands full trying to get all of our stuff packed up by himself while trying to watch the kids, and I also worried that if my ears and head didn't stop hurting, I wouldn't be able to fly.

Greg and the kids brought breakfast back to our suite. Amazingly, I started feeling better by about 9 a.m. (thank you God), and I was able to get everything packed up. We checked out of the hotel and headed north on I-5 back towards LA. The traffic was thankfully quite light (it was Easter Sunday), so we had time to make a stopover in San Juan Capistrano. We had a little difficulty locating the mission, but finally found it smack dab in the middle of town. It didn't look like I had envisioned…it was quite, um, how can I say this… dumpy-looking. We wanted to tour the mission, but I wasn't feeling THAT good, so we decided to save it for a future trip.

We hopped back on I-5, and because of the incredibly light traffic, we made it back to the LA airport several hours early. Our flight back home was uneventful, and by the end of the day, I felt much better. While our flight arrived back into Minneapolis-St. Paul early, there was some type of snafu with the luggage system at the airport, and there were about 1,000 people milling around the baggage area waiting for the bags. It took over 45 minutes before they even started unloading the bags from our flight. Mark had been in a great mood when we got off the plane, but the long delay in baggage did him in. Poor little guy...I couldn't blame him. I was ready to scream too!

This was truly a wonderful and relaxing vacation. As soon as we got back, we cancelled our reservations to go to WDW at Christmas, and booked a return visit to Disneyland for the holidays instead.

If you made it this far, thanks for reading! [img]images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

[ 12-30-2002, 12:27 AM: Message edited by: Little Mermaid ]

[CRCrazy]

Loved your report - we've never been out to California - but after reading this - I would love to check it out!

[Cinderella_68]

What a great TR! Too bad you didn't get to walk around and explore Julian more. It is one of my favorite places to go for a relaxing day trip. (I live in San Diego.) They are famous for apples and the pies from Mom's pies are TDF! One of the best "dates" DH and I ever had was to climb to the top of the cemetary, (it's on a hill,) reading the headstones on the way. It was very interesting and a few were very touching, too.
Anyway, enough of my rambling, I'm glad your family had a great trip, and glad God made you feel better. [img]images/icons/wink.gif[/img]

[tikibird]

Thanks for sharing your trip with us! Sounds like you had a great time with the West Coast Mouse! [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img] We're thinking about making DL our next Disney destination - and I'm wondering if you would stay at Candy Cane again? We were there in December of 2000, and are thinking about booking it again.

Thanks again for your report - I really enjoyed it! [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img]