Back to California Exploring.
I left you with our adventures in Santa Monica. So fun. After we got done with Santa Monica, it was our plan to drive Highway 1 down the coast to Laguna Beach. We figured it would be so beautiful to ride down the coast as we traveled. Wrong. So very wrong.
What we failed to realize is that the pretty drive on highway 1 was not from Santa Monica to San Diego, but from San Francisco to Los Angeles. What we encountered was an extremely long "main st" that passed through various beach towns with lots of lights and lots of traffic. Oh, and the "beautiful scenery" of the ocean lasted for approximately 2 minutes during this 2 hour drive. Miserable.
But then we made it to Laguna Beach.
I have to say, Laguna Beach was beautiful. It was windy so I got to see some pretty big waves (well big waves to this Texas girl).
We spent that afternoon hanging out on the beach, but cut that short do to these little tiny beach gnat's that were quite literally swarming me.
I know it doesn't look like many, but believe me when I say there were A BILLION… alright, that might be a little bit of an exaggeration, but seriously. There were so many I felt like they were flying into my eyes and up my nose. Maybe too much information, but I feel like you should know the annoyance of these little creatures.
After the beach we (Casey) really wanted to eat with a beach view to we could watch the sunset. So after much searching we found a little spot that was delicious and a stunning view of the sunset.
Not bad, right?
To end the night we discovered a cute little gelato place which made the whole trip down Highway 1 aka Big Long Terrible Main Street worth it.
It was only slightly melting.
We then headed to our destination for the night in Carlsbad. When researching hotels we found an Omni in Carlsbad that was actually affordable. We figured it would be a nicer hotel like the ones we had stayed at before. Nope. Wrong again. When we pulled up (at 10:00 pm) we entered a resort. Legit resort. It was massive and because it was dark it made finding the entrance/parking/everything ten times harder. Of course, we had to park far away in self parking (where you still had to pay about $30) and then walk forever to our room. It had to have been the most complicated, maze of a place we could have found. But none the less, we finally found our room. Casey was obviously not happy about the walk.
The next morning we hit the ground running and made a last minute decision to go to the Safari Park instead of the San Diego Zoo. We ended up being able to go on an amazing "safari" where I got to hand feed rhinos and giraffes. It was so amazing I can't really even put it in to words so I will just give you some pictures.
Giraffes are characters. This little fella could not stop playing with his tongue. I mean what a sight. Fun fact: for every foot of giraffe there is an inch of tongue.
They are also sneaky animals. When you are feeding them you have to hide the rest behind your back or they will snatch it all. This fella was a known thief, so I had to be careful.
They really are stunning animals.
And then we had the rhinos. They were hilarious to feed. Look at that mouth!
After, we got to explore the rest of the Safari Park which included birds, gorillas, elephants, tigers, lions, and all sorts of creatures. One of the more exciting ones we got to see were the cheetahs. There was an event they put on where you can watch the cheetah run full speed ahead at his stuffed toy. She was FAST. To get her to run down the track, they first send her best friend, who is a large dog (60lbs), that the cheetah has grown up with since she was 9 weeks old.
After the Safari Park we explored some more of San Diego starting with Hotel Del Coronado. We loved getting to walk around and explore the hotel and all of its history.
Next up: Seals in La Jolla. Stinky, but awesome. Stinking awesome. What was most entertaining, was one of the seals deciding to take others sun bathing areas. He just wasn't satisfied. Watch him.
This guy is not thrilled about it…
But he says.. "fine, ok you can have it"…
"This worked out well… now I have a pillow"
Oh, but then he decides on a new spot where he is not moving just one seal, but TWO. Gosh, so stingy.
Our clothes and hair were now fully soaked in the smell of seal so we decided to leave and go visit some of our best friends!
What sweet time it was to spend with the most kind, humble, loving, and joyful people. They took us around to some of their favorite spots in San Diego.
Mount Soledad was one of those places. What an incredible view. We just stood in awe as the sun was setting enjoying this sweet time with friends.
This is Amy. She's amazing. If you love running you can go and visit her inspiring/encouraging blog here.
Now, another fun fact about me is that my favorite movie of all time is Top Gun. Might be a little strange and I don't have any explanations. I just love it. While in San Diego, we got an opportunity to visit some top gun spots including this office from this scene.
The next day we had so much fun relaxing and then taking a nice hike up Torrey Pines to burn off all of the In-N-Out burger we had been eating.
To end our trip we said the hardest good-bye's to friends and went to the event of the week: our cousins wedding.
It was the most stunning location to make a covenant to God that you would love and spend the rest of your lives with each other. We were so blessed to be there.
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