Sailing Ships and "Safari's" - A Family Vacation in the San Diego Area

Now that our kids and most of their cousins have ditched their poopy diapers, The Big Brother, The Big Sister, and I decided that we should take an extended family vacation.  We decided that we should visit Legoland in San Diego before The Kids outgrow it.  It had been a few years since we took them on a long flight.  We didn't narc them this time.  In retrospect, maybe that would have been better.  Instead, I installed Plants vs. Zombies on the iPad for them to play.  While this kept them quiet on the plane, it was annoying listening to the kids singing “There’s a zombie on your lawn…” for the remainder of the week.

After landing at the airport, renting a car, and dropping The Wife off at The Fancy Mall to shop, I decided to take the kids over to the Maritime Museum.  To my surprise, the metered parking spots are not free despite it being the weekend.  Nevertheless, the harbor is a pretty cool place.  Besides the multitude of tourists like me, there were artists selling their trinkets, bikers and skateboarders practicing their stunts, and peddle-cab operators blasting music from their boom-boxes (I didn't know they still made these!)

The Maritime Museum is composed of a collection of several older ships.  The “star” of the fleet is the Star of India, the oldest active sailing vessel in the world (built by the Brits in 1863).  The kids had fun playing with the rigging on the deck.  To them it was just a jumble of string.  Below deck are museum quality displays describing anything from the different classifications of sailing vessels to a collection of whale photographs.  The living quarters were pretty cramped, showing how difficult a sailor’s life used to be.  I think I’d last only two or three days before I’d mutiny.

The Star of India

The U.S.S. Carl Vinson was docked in the San Diego harbor.
Only 3 months before it had given Bin Laden his burial at sea.

WIIILSOOON!

Docked next to the Star of India is the smaller vessel HMS Surprise, a replica of a British frigate.  It was used to film the movie Master and Commander.  Despite the large Captain’s wheel above deck, the ship has an identical control exactly one deck below that was used to steer the ship.  I always imagined that the warships during the Age of Sail would be large, intimidating vessels.  However, this boat seemed fairly ordinary.

The HMS Surprise

Trim the Sails!

One of the coolest ships there is actually a submarine.  It’s an old 70’s era diesel sub called the B-39.  It’s pretty small and cramped in there.  While the air outside in the harbor was cool and breezy, the submarine was hot and muggy.  I realized I am not very flexible when we had to climb through three circular hatches to traverse the submarine.  My girl wiped out climbing down a set of three steep stairs.  You could hear the clang as her skull hit the metal steps.  Luckily, she bounced right up without crying.  I was just yelling out to my boy “Watch out for the—” when I heard him crashing down as well.  Sigh.

The B-39 is more K-19 rather than Red October.

Old Ruskie torpedo

The periscope is aimed at the aircraft carrier across the harbor.

If the toilet gets clogged...

...you can always take a dump in the torpedo tube.

There were a couple of other ships in the fleet—a steam yacht, an American submarine, and a large steam ferry that hosted larger exhibits and a gift shop.  They also have a collection of some of Paul Gauguin’s works.  However, I passed because I didn't think the kids would be too interested in paintings of naked Tahitian women.

We checked into our hotel for the night, the Hilton San Diego Bayfront Hotel located next to Petco Park.

There's a beautiful view of the bay from our bedroom window.

There's a nice view of the shower from our bathroom mirror.

Unfortunately, the Padres were on the road because the weather was perfect for a ballgame.  The hotel is family friendly with the kids getting a little bag of toys on check-in.  That night they had a cupcake decorating activity for the kids, while there was a wine tasting for the adults.  This basically devolved into a bunch of parents downing a lot of free alcohol while gorging on their kid’s cupcakes.

What pairs better with a chocolate cupcake--a Moscato or a Reisling?

For dinner, we headed out to a highly-rated Ethiopian restaurant called the Muzita Abyssinian Bistro.  Finding a parking spot in this area on a Saturday night was close to impossible.  We tried the kitfo (beef tartare) appetizer and the ono tsebhi (spicy grilled fish) and dorho kilwa (grilled chicken) entrees.  Maybe we were being too ambitious trying to get the kids to eat foods more exotic than macaroni and cheese.  In retrospect, it was probably a bad sign that they were the only children in the restaurant.  Unfortunately, the medium spiciness that we ordered was actually much hotter than we expected.  Luckily, the kids liked the bland injera (spongy, unleavened pancake bread) and the stewed vegetables which we all thought were the best parts of the meal.  After a long day and lots of jet lag, we had to carry two sleeping children out of the restaurant.

The highlight of next morning’s breakfast buffet was definitely their bacon.  The Hilton didn't go cheap with thin, greasy pork bellies.  Their bacon had bite.  They are going to need to slaughter a couple more pigs to replace all the pork that I ate.  In contrast, their biscuits and gravy looked ghastly, definitely not something you would find in the South.

We picked up The Mother at the airport and proceeded north up to Carlsbad.  After spending much of the day at the Carlsbad Premium Outlets buying stuff that we didn't need, we checked into the West Inn and Suites.  Their staff is so friendly and helpful that I swear that they must be Mormons.  We ate at their Bistro West next door for dinner because we were too lazy to drive anywhere.  The food was solid but not outstanding.  We were pretty full, but still had plenty of room to enjoy the milk and cookies that are provided complimentary every night at the hotel.      

The Wife and I awoke the next morning for an early run.  The hotel was only a block or two from the beach, so we were able to watch all the surfers wipe out as we jogged.  Later, we drove 45 minutes east to Escondido and the San Diego Zoo Safari Park.

Entrance to the safari park

Kids get to decorate their own plastic pith helmet.  Parents get to carry it for the next 4 hours. 

This cat has some serious hops.

Goat petting area

The Safari Park's "African plains"

My family had actually visited this park about 25 years ago. The Mother didn't remember it being this nice back then—nor as expensive.  They have several “extra” packages that can pile on the costs.  We stuck with the basic tram experience which still costs ~ $200 for the five of us.

The Segway tour is an extra $80 a person.

The caravan tour will set you back an additional $90 a person.

The animals had plenty of room to roam--as long as they stayed within the area enclosed by the fences.

Rhinoceros

African antelope

The zebras have to be kept apart from the other herd animals because essentially they are a__holes.

WTF is up with that crooked neck!
  Apparently this is normal in young giraffes.

I get that the point of the zoo is to have animals in a much more free and natural environment.  However, there was just so much walking just to see the next animal area.  Whereas Carlsbad was a nice 70 degrees, Escondido was almost 10-15 degrees higher.  The sun bore down on us incessantly.  It was like the Bataan March of zoos.  Surprisingly, our Rugrats were troopers and made the complete trek with only a little whining.  Next time, I think we’ll stick with the “cruel,” traditional zoos…or Animal Planet.

Even the lions were too hot to move.

The only shaded area for this lion was right next
to the glass--a perfect spot for visitors to see him.

After Big Sister and her family joined us later in the afternoon, The Boy and his cousins, Thing 1 and Thing 2, did a lot of catching up with each other at the pool.

Apparently, they are all Lego Star Wars fans.

Afterwards, we headed to dinner at Norte Restaurant, which was highly recommended by the hotel staff.  They are a busy mid-priced Mexican restaurant in “downtown” Carlsbad.  We all thought the food was really good for the price.  I had the crab burrito and The Wife had nopales (cactus paddles) with beef.  We were really floored by how good the nopales were.  I have seen them in the ethnic grocery stores back home, but never had the balls to try and make them.  It looks like they will be worth the challenge.

Telephone booths make a nice make-shift jail for naughty kids.