Every year Tanner likes to assign that year a theme. For 2015 he decided our theme would come with lots of adventures… the year of the Zoocations. We initially set a goal to hit 5 new zoos throughout the year… but somehow only managed to hit 4ish zoos in one trip. We thought we were so prepared for a last minute road trip like this... little did we know the adventure we had in store. We had a DVD player installed in the car so that the kids wouldn't drive us crazy... with the exception of fighting over movies... it worked.
We drove to Vegas the first night and stayed in a fun place off the strip. The kids loved swimming and getting a break.
Emerson brought an old iPhone and insisted on taking pictures of everything... the drive... the animals... and not 1 of each... like 50!
We bought a pass that got us into the San Diego Zoo, Safari Park Zoo and Sea World as many times as we could pack them into 7 Days... we were planning on doing our first half day at the San Diego Zoo... the next day at Sea World... followed by the Safari Park Zoo and then one full day at The San Diego Zoo before heading home. We were even thinking of squeezing in a half day at Sea World on our last day before we made the long drive home. This... did NOT... happen, but we made the most of a bad situation.
The San Diego Zoo is huge... you walk forever and still don't see everything. Tanner wanted to take the fun ride over gondola first thing so we did.... side note, you can't take strollers with you! We started wondering around and checking things out... before we knew it, we were half way back to our stroller and the kids were done. So pretty much, we did a half day at the Zoo with 3 kids and no stroller... it was one serious work out!
So after our fun work out.. we went to check into our "cheap" hotel that I booked. It was sooooo gross and I couldn't bring myself to put my new baby down anywhere. The pool area was so nasty and it wasn't the most family friendly crowd. Thinking we could easily find something else, we got out of the rest of our reservation there and checked out the next morning on our way to Sea World. It was our kids first time there and they loved it. There are so many hands on things for them and they really liked taking breaks from walking for the shows. However, we spent so much of the day on our phones trying to book a hotel that our phones died and it was kind of stressful. Right as we were leaving the park, Tanner booked us a room at the Marriott just down the street from our other hotel for the rest of our trip. The room was so nice and we were ready to get back to focusing on our Zoocation.
The next morning we headed up to the San Diego Safari Park Zoo. Of all of the zoos I have ever been to, this one has been my very favorite. I loved that it was up in the hills and most of it was under these huge shade trees. I loved the savanna and tram ride through all of it. The views were absolutely amazing. What I didn't love was getting a call as we were leaving saying that our things at the hotel were being packed up and would be held at the front desk for us to pick up! We were being kicked out of our hotel. Apparently they had over booked themselves for Valentine's Day and they decided a family of 5 was the best choice to kick out. The lady said she heard Tanner say one night and not until Monday night. Even after she had quoted him the prices for each of the 3 nights!
We literally showed up to luggage in the lobby and an "I'm so sorry but we are too full... you will have to find somewhere else to stay." They had actually shoved all of our things back into whatever bags they could find and moved us out. It was the worst feeling ever... like our privacy had been violated. Our kids kept asking the manager... why are you kicking us out. We sat in the lobby for over an hour trying to find a hotel that we could take them to. Literally every hotel in the San Diego area was booked for Valentines Day. We found a couple that were $1,200 a night and a few motel 8 rooms for $500 a night... but there was nothing. And nothing in a 75 mile radius. By this point it was 8 pm at night and we were just going to start driving the car until we found a place with vacancy. Then we remembered that Grandma and Grandpa were in Yuma and that was only a couple hour drive away... detour road trip and we ended up in Yuma just after midnight their time. They really are the best, they even waited up for us and then chatted with us until 1:30 in the morning!
Determined to make the best out of a less than ideal situation, we set off for the Camel park in Yuma. Not quite the San Diego Zoo, but they did have a bunch of fun and different animals for us to interact with.
After all of our craziness... our kids loved our Yuma visit more than the rest of the trip. Pat and Vern are their favorites and it was so nice to see them.
We were initially planning to go to a zoo in Idaho over the summer and then hit the Denver Zoo and another nearby Mountain Zoo near that in the fall. Maybe our first trip had scarred us enough that we didn't attempt anymore road trips... but I would like to make those trips some day!
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