San Diego, Day One

Our first evening in San Diego we got lost trying to find a restaurant called the Hob Nob Hill. It was supposed to be this diner from the 40s and it was really played up in a travel book that I bought. So we drove around looking for it and ended up in some strip mall with a Borders where we bought a street map. This was the best thing we did the whole vacation. San Diego has some messed up streets so we needed the help. Like when you're driving down street A but then at the intersection the name changes to street B and then at the next intersection it not only changes to street C but goes in two opposite directions. Seriously. You could turn left and be on street C or you could go straight and be on street C. Without the map we probably would have ended up in Mexico somewhere.

Anyway, Hob Nob Hill wasn't that impressive but it was on First Street which may be the coolest street ever. Every house was a great old Victorian with big porches and bouganvillia hanging from every surface. It seemed that way, at least. First Street ended up being the street we used the most to get back to our motel and every time we went up it I found some new house that I loved.

We didn't really do much else the first night because we had been driving all day and then we got lost and we were pretty tired. We just went back to the room and unpacked and watched Cold Case.

Day one was Sea World. Their computers were broken so we got free parking. The weather was pretty bad the first few days (dark and drizzly) so there weren't a lot of people there. We could just walk into anything without a wait. It was pretty much like that the whole week, which was cool. You could see where they had the ropes set up for two hour long waits so it was nice we didn't have to bother with that. Everything closed a few hours earlier than in the summer though so we had to keep moving to pack everything in. Sea World has a donkey on display. I just find that amusing. It's a cute donkey. It gets a lot of attention. Other than that, there were the usual dolphins and whales and whatnot. My favorite show was Pets Rule. It was just regular dogs, cats, pigs and ducks doing tricks. What? Shamu was impressive and all but a dog setting up his place for a date is way better.

Sea World was fun and it would be great if you had kids. It wasn't nearly as good as Day Two, though. Day Two was by far my favorite part of the whole vacation.