The rest of the story

Here we are nearly to November - which is a bit hard to believe, and I'm still trying to catch up from August. I guess it's like that saying that Pres. Monson has said before (in a para-phrased version), the one about us having memories so that we can enjoy June roses in the December of our lives - remember that one? It's actually been pretty fun to go back through all the pictures from our trip and re-live some of the highlights.

So without putting it off any longer, let's wrap this thing up!

We went to a Safari Adventure Park that is in conjunction with the San Diego Zoo. To be honest, it was cool, but not quite what I'd had in mind. There was sooo much wide open space that the animals were either spread out all over these great distances, or hiding somewhere cool since it was so stinkin' hot that day!

But we did get to ride a little safari bus thing and get a bit of a better view of a few animals.

As we were walking through all the little trails, there was this little pair of funny looking birds that Malia (the animal charmer of the family) was able to coax over and feed out of her hand. They were pretty cool looking with their big blue feet.

  See Dad looking at the map? That is the definition of our whole vacation! But the best part is, half the time we ended up just kind of winging it in the end, anyway. :) I'm not kidding though, this place was huge and a little overwhelming at times. But they had some neat animals!

  One of the coolest things we did there was go into this giant rainforest/birdcage and take little cups of nectar water with us. The birds in there would come sit on your arm and drink out of the cup! They were so cute.

 Of course, it was a very conditional love from the birds. The minute their treats were gone they left you for someone with a full cup. :)

 Look at this baby elephant!! It was so cute! It's mama kept going into the pool, so baby would hesitantly follow. Then everytime they came out, baby had to get a bit of help by grabbing onto mama's tail.

  And yes, I know we've established on here already what a fan of food I am....don't judge me. :)
This story would not be complete without telling you about one of THE best Mexican restaurants we've ever eaten at. It's called Miguels and if you ever go to California, you have GOT to find one and eat there. They have this cheese sauce that comes out with the chips and salsa as the "pre-meal" well, meal! Seriously, I don't know how many refills we got before our main courses showed up. But the cheese sauce might have been all I'd needed to go home a happy camper. And the best part is, you can ask them to add it to any of the food you order - so yes, we all did.
   Check out this lovely little pina colada! Mmmm.

   We'd been doing lots of driving, walking, and shopping that day so it felt good to go to a fun sit-down place for dinner.

   Does this not look divine?! :)

 Whew, ok - so then we walked down to another beach and I waded for a minute while everyone just kind of puttered around. It was a pretty spot.

  The next day we went to the actual San Diego Zoo and saw lots more fun things! For instance, this baby giraffe was born less than 24 hours before we got there. It was so cute to watch it run around it's pen.

  After spending most of the day at the zoo, we hit the beach one more time. David did some body boarding while we all waded/hung out on the beach. Then all of a sudden Mom was getting all excited and telling us she'd just seen a dolphin not too far out.
  So we started keeping an eye out toward the area she'd been talking about. Not too much later, we saw it again. It never came fully out of the water, but we saw its fin and part of its back. David come onto the beach for a minute so we told him about it before he went back out on the board. Then a few minutes later we saw several dolphins and they were only a few yards behind the area where David was!! It was probably one of my favorite parts of the whole trip! When he came back we told him how close they were to him now and he was like, "I want to ride one!" Wouldn't that be the best?! :)
   Anyway, we got all dried off and spent the evening roaming around a little area that had all kinds of vendors and some carnival rides and fun things to look at.

  At one point of the trip we stopped at an old Mexican part of town and checked out some fun stores around there. Have any of you seen the movie, "Nacho Libre"? It's ok if you don't want to admit it, not everyone is a fan of it. :) But as soon as David saw these wrestling masks, he started getting all excited and all he could do was say, "Tiana, Tiana!!" And point to the stand that was selling them. We walked over (because clearly David is one of those people who appreciates "Nacho") and he picked out the mask that looked the most legit.
                                                 Here's the real thing.....

Here's David. He was having a great day! :)

  At the end of the trip, we loaded up into our mini-van and headed home. After such a busy week (yes, vacations are busy and quite exhausting, let's be honest) and especially after a rough start, it was so refreshing to see something familiar. The Temple. Seriously, it reminds of the conference talk, "You're never lost when you can see the temple." It was the perfect send off.

Sadly, I don't think I took any more pictures of the trip home. It was almost as crazy to come home as it was to leave....well, not AS crazy. But we did spend about an hour or more looking for a hotel on Friday night because Dad had decided to drive as far as we could that night and then stop when it got late.
   After a rather intense drive through downtown Reno somewhere a little before midnight, then about 4 or 5 different hotels later, and still no luck finding a place to stay, Dad told us all to settle in for a long night. He drove until 2 or 3 in the morning then pulled into a truck stop to sleep for a bit before finishing up the drive home.
  Here's the kicker, in my delirious state somewhere between sleeping and waking up the next morning, I realized that we were literally in the parking lot right next to the Motel 6 we'd stayed at in Winnemucca at the start of the trip. So near and yet so far! But it's all good. We are not strangers to sleeping in the car during long road trips. It happened on the way to Boston all those years ago, and it worked out then, too!
  But I can't tell you how good it was to see Idaho again! I've been quite a few places in my day and it's nice to visit far away places. But Idaho is THE best place to live, and I wouldn't want that to change for just anything.
   Well, now we're caught up with that. How many more things do I need to go back to now? And time is ticking for David. He'll be in sunny Brazil in about 5 weeks!!
  Stay tuned.....