Sea World & La Holla

This morning we were up at 8am to make it down to breakfast and out the door in time. Breakfast was complimentary and quite a spread! We left full and ready to go. We drove down to the Point Lomas Seafoods stand to buy sloppy crab sandwiches for later. We drove to Sea World and were quite impressed with their parking. They had everything marked with cones and attendants everywhere to guide you to a parking spot. That way everyone filled in front front to back during the day. We got in to the park and immediately went to the Shamu show. Its a little different each time, this time is more touchy feely than it used to be but its still amazing. The new Shamu is absolutely huge, its hard to believe that he can get as high out of the water as he does. We tried to take pictures with our big zoom lens but he was so fast we may have only gotten splashes.

After the Shamu show we walked over to the Wild Arctic Encounter exhibit to see Walruses, Polar Bears and Beluga Whales. One walrus did continuous laps rubbing his belly up against the glass; while another ate (and regurgitated and ate again) some fish right up against the glass. We had to run across the park to near the Shamu show again to see the Dolphins feed. The dolphins are fed and go through light training as they are so we got to see them do flips and simple tricks.

After that we decided to get lunch. Mike, Bree, Sean, Robert, and Anna Mae left the park to get our sloppy crab sandwiches in the car. They were so good! Imagine soft, fresh sourdough bread, with a cup of shelled crab and a tangy special tartar sauce. We also got "extra" sauce to make them "extra" sloppy. Everyone but Bree had a beer with it too, which made it even better. They are amazing; if you like crab and you are anywhere near San Diego, you have to go. ;)

After we got back into the park, we met up with Devon, Grandma and Pam at the Penguin Encounter. Devon loves penguins. There are over 300 in the exhibit and we were lucky enough to catch them eating. There were large stuffy looking Emperors that can way up to 100 pounds! And smaller adielas that leapt out of the water with ease. We even got to see "Tut," a King penguin that is going blind and the favorite of the trainers. There are very few King penguins in the exhibit and they are shy.

We went to the Sea Lion show which is a classic although the show itself often changes. It was very funny and the two sea lions, Seymour and Clyde, seem to be the original sea lions we last saw ten years ago! The show was a spoof on Saturday Night Live (SNL) and was called SLL (Sea Lions Live). It was quite cute; Mike thought the sea lions may be smarter or at least better trained than our dog Beau.

We also went through the Shark Encounter, saw the flamingos, watched the sea lions and dolphins feed as well as going through the fresh water and sea water aquariums. By the end of it we were tired of walking (and from the late night before) and headed out. Mike and Bree got dropped off near the airport to pick up a rental and then we all headed to La Jolla.

La Jolla is a high end road with nice galleries and restaurants. Mike and Bree noticed an artist painting outside her gallery and wandered in. It turned out to be Sally Huss, an artist Bree had seen before. Her art is light and bright, fully of happy thoughts and pretty images. We ended up buying several small prints for gifts and look forward to buying more from her. She even signed the largest print we bought which was amazing. :)

From there we met the rest of the family, including Jo and Dale at Alfonso's. Alfonso's was a favorite of Pamela and Robert's when they lived in San Diego and it was the first place they took Bree after she was born. We had nachos, margarita's and great meals. Now we're all full, slightly tipsy and tired from our long day. Its early to bed now and early to rise! We head out to the Wild Animal Park tomorrow!