The Animal Places of San Diego

Thursday, May 22, 2014

I wasn’t sure what to name this blog post because I didn’t want to be generic and say San Diego. That would be boring. So I thought about it and went hum. Petco Park and the Zoo. They are both animal places. Granted Petco park doesn’t really have any animals unless you consider baseball players animals but it is named after “the place where pets go.” We meet Blue Mews and Red the dog (mascots that walk around the park) and got a picture so I guess there are animals there.

DEN to SAN via SLC
Our venture from Denver to San Diego was uneventful but a little bumpy, as in turbulence. We had leaving Denver and landing in Salt Lake. And leave Salt Lake was really bad. Some of the worse I’ve experience. I’m not sure why the sun was shining and there were very few clouds. I’m not sure if it is because of the mountains?  We got to San Diego and hoped a shuttle to our hotel. Oh to be in San Diego again. I really do love this city, it is probably the only one in California I’d consider living in.

Kim & Eric 2, Padres 0
We didn’t have much time to relax at the hotel before the Twins game. We dumped our stuff and changed. Weather of course was dilemma again. It was about 60 degrees with that ocean breeze. For once I got my clothing right. I didn’t get cold until the 6th inning but I brought my sweatshirt along so all was good. Our seats were pretty good, 4 rows from the field right by third base. Before the game started a few twins came over. Kubel held his daughter which was cute but refused to sign stuff…bad! Plouffe was really good about it he signed for everybody and took some pictures with people but that only lasted until Mauer came over and everybody ditch Plouffe. I wish I had a sharpie and ball because I would have gone down to Plouffe for a signature when everybody ditched him. I don’t care about Mauer…but that is for another blog post at a later date.

The Twins got on the board early with a Chris Parmalee home run. The cool thing about going to games in California is that almost half of the players are from here so that means family and friends are in the crowd. Parmalee had friends behind us…that was so cool. We talked a bit about him and his family and his baseball. You don’t get that at Target Field!

The other cool thing about going to away interleague games is watching your pitcher bat. It is hilarious. I know they have batted in the past but to watch them do it when it isn’t a regular occurrence is funny. Our pitchers didn’t do so hot batting.

The Twins lead most of the game but the Padre’s tied it up. Kurt (Clutch) Suzuki fixed that with an in-the-park home run. It was weird. We all thought it was out but they ruled in never went out because it rolled on the wall and came back in. That make sense since Kurt was flying around the bases and slide home. A very strange play. Perkins came in for the save and the Twins won 5-3. It was a fun game.

Animals are Calling
Yesterday we spend almost the entire day at the zoo, and I mean the entire day. We got on the 9:40 trolley from our hotel. We drove over the Coronado Bridge and saw some of the sites on the island including the $4.89 gas. The next stop was Balboa Park. This place is massive and has lots to see including the Zoo. We walked around the park and got to zoo and you could hear all the animals making noise. We covered almost the entire zoo, entirely on foot. No busses, no shuttles, no kangaroo express. All on foot. By the way my feet now hurt.

First stop was the reptile house for all the snakes, lizards and iguanas…Eric’s thing not mine. The Galapagos Turtles are awesome. A women standing next to me pointed at turtle number 5 and said that is Speedy. I rode him as a child and I’m 68 years old, he is over 150. That is so crazy to me. We saw Speedy get into a confrontation with another turtle for the water. They just raised their heads at each other and Speedy didn’t win. He got one foot in the water. 

Animals Galore
We saw a tiger during feeding time. He stalked the zoo worker, it was funny to watch. We saw the a walrus, pelicans and other birds, polar bears, panda bears, elephants, lions (both African and Asian), koala bears, rhinos, giraffes,  and so much more.

I wore the wrong sandals for the day and ended up with blisters. Stupid me, I know it was a lot of walking and steep terrain but I wore sandals. Doh!

After the zoo we hoped back on the trolley and was forced to stop at Old Town…think flea market with a Mexican flare. Yep, not really our cup of tea. We had to wait for the next trolley to take us back to our hotel. We stopped at Horton Plaza shopping center first for a new bag because we bought too much (again, we never learn to pack right). And finally made it back to the hotel by 5pm. A long successful day.

Rootbeer and Pizza Don’t Mix, Seriously!
We relaxed for a bit and took a swim in the heated pool and hot tub. The breeze off the ocean was cold! We changed clothes quickly and went to the Fox Sport’s Grill for dinner. This is where I spilled my entire glass of rootbeer on my flat bread pizza. That was gross. I managed to salvage a few pieces which was enough for me to eat (it was huge) but that was a major bummer. As a friend put on Facebook, “Dough!”

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