I went to San Diego

I took a trip to San Diego for four days last week. It's a different place.
I would actually say it's probably the most different place I've ever been to. At least as far as cities go.

The biggest difference is the weather. That is to say, it's good.

San Diego is located in a desert region; it gets less than ten total inches of rainfall per year. It's more or less surrounded by mountains, except for its western side which is of course up against the Pacific Ocean. Rain rarely reaches the city because most systems rain themselves out before they can make it over the mountains.
But looking at it, you'd never know it was a desert 200 years ago. It's beautiful out there.

The view from the front of our hotel.

Today it teems with all sorts of plant life, a wider variety than any single location I can recall seeing. This is because here along the gulf coast, we cultivate whatever grows naturally here. But almost nothing grows naturally in SD, so a hundred and fifty years ago, the township sent out a call for seeds. Lots and lots of seeds, and they were extremely indiscriminant as to which seeds they asked for, as well as which seeds they planted. With a little irrigation, it seems, there was no problem getting anything to grow.

Balboa Park

In fact, in that place, I saw the reddest roses I've ever seen in my life. And I used to work for a nursery-- I saw a lot of roses.

This photo is untouched.

And although it's a desert out there, at least technically, the weather is 70 degrees year round. The whole year. It never gets above 80 and almost never gets below 60. This is because on the Pacific side of the US, the current flows south from Alaska, while on the Gulf and Atlantic side, the current comes north from the equator.

And so the weather is perfect. It's far enough away from the San Andreas Fault that there is no need to fear Earthquakes; the ocean is cold so there is virtually no threat from tropical storms or hurricanes; too dry for tornadoes; sunshine all year long; no extreme temperatures, ever. Clean air. It's just that there's no rain, and they have to steal their water from elsewhere, mostly the Colorado river/Hoover dam. San Diego is the perfect City but for its dependence on Nevada for water and its location in a bankrupt state.

But anyway, about the trip (which will continually come back to the weather).

We landed in SD at about 8:30 local time. So we had the whole day ahead of us. We made it to the Zoo by ten or so.

It's pretty much everything you'd ever want from a zoo. It's huge, of course, but it also makes sure you can see most of the exhibits from at least two, often three vantage points. And in many cases it lets you get startlingly close to the animals. The polar bear exhibit included a low viewing area which put you at about eye level with the water level in their exhibit, and all that's between you and the bears is glass. They wrestled with eachother in the water for about ten minutes, then went their separate ways to go stretch out and generally be lazy. They're my favorite animals now, by the way, because they're like giant dogs in the way they play with each other and in how they chill out.

So again, all of these animals in these shots were never more than twenty feet away, and in many cases it was half that. The final thing worth noting is the fact that there tended to be more animals in each exhibit than I'm used to seeing. When the Houston Zoo had its gorilla, it was always alone as far as I can remember. The SD zoo had three adults and two kids. The bonobo exhibit had two or three kids and five adults. And there were probably eight or nine elephants, maybe more. I think this fact, combined with the less oppressive weather, encouraged the animals to be more active, less depressed an listless, so it was rare that we just saw the animals sleeping. We got to watch them doing things that they do, especially interacting with each other, which was the coolest thing about all of it. The bonobo kids came up to the glass and tapped on it and stared at the crowds for a while (Michelle nearly flipped out and burst into tears).

Left the zoo at 3:30, too tired to do anything else.

Woke up early again the next day and made to Sea World by 9:30 or so.

Caught the shuttle to Sea World and this was the first thing we saw.

The Shamu show didn't start for a while, so we caught the Dolphin show first. It was cute. Except for the guy who was supposed to "warm up" the crowd before the show started. He bored me.

Killer whales are amazing. The show was pretty cool. EXCEPT. They try to add some really hokey narrative to the show. Something about "believing." They never really specify what you're supposed to be "believing" in.

And, no joke, this is a 95% accurate quote from the show. Spoken in a voice that sounded like a cheap Don LaFontane impression:

"Two different species, reaching out at their very core... to make a connection."

When I tried to talk to Michelle about it, she said, "what talking? I don't remember any speech over the speakers." She was too engrosed in the Killer Whales to even notice the cheesey storey they put to it.

Got back to the hotel in the mid-late afternoon and ate a nice little cafe next door. Good food, GREAT margarita. Went to bed, very sunburned.

Woke up early again Wednesday for a tour of the city.