San Diego Part 3

Part 3
Wednesday Part 1 (are you all kinds of confused?)
We rented a car for Wednesday and Thursday.  I'm so glad we did.  We were able to see so much more this way.  We visited the first mission established in California.  Once again we had beautiful weather.  And the mission itself was beautiful.  The white of the buildings against the blue sky--it was just amazing.

It took this many steps to get up to the mission from the parking lot.

C liked this guy cuz of all the jewels in his hat.

Thanks to my brother and his wife for the most awesome tripod ever!

We were able to hear these bells at least once while we were there.
One bell is always "donated" by royalty and has a special top to donate it.

There were so many statues at the mission.

There was a miniature of every mission in California. This is the mini of the mission we were at.

Beautiful fountain out in the courtyard.  I could have just sat there all day enjoying the weather.

I thought these trees were interesting.
Whatever those yellow things are, they were growing right out the side of the tree trunk.

San Diego Part 2

Today will be pictures from Sea World.  I was not impressed with Sea World.  I thought it was small.  There were no rides (except for the sky coaster).  Most of the exhibits were not large enough to accommodate the massive crowds (mostly foreigners too).  We saw 2 show: the "Shamu" show was good (very "be good to the world-ish"); the dolphin show was "eh."  If we were ever to go back, I don't know that we would waste any time here.  I've since been told that the other Sea Worlds are much better.

"Shamu"

Oh no!  The giant sea weed is attacking!

Do you see the fish?

I found Nemo!

Again.  Do you see the fish?

When we first saw this little guy, all we could see was his nose.  We said "what a pretty color!
 Kalei would have liked that fish."  Then he swam out.  He's 2 toned!  How extra cool!

Octopus sucker things (do they have a name?)

I think this was called a rose anemone
(ya know, like on "Finding Nemo"
uh-nem-o-nee)

A cool, skinny star fish. 

Looks like a marshmallow with eyes.

We had beautiful weather the entire time we were there!

This is what C did about a zillion times:  Tie his shoe.

We also did the sky coaster here too.  This one was out over the water.  So pretty!

This boat's name was Wasabi
(again a Disney movie: like on Cars 2
"do NOT eat the Pistachio ice cream.  IT HAS TURNED.")

A "Cirque de Soleil" type of show with dolphins and birds.
I was somewhat disappointed,
but some of that was due to the fact that we had horrible seats!

I love this flower!  I'm actually going to enlarge this picture
and hang it in our newly decorated bedroom (another post to come)

The penguin exhibit was disappointing.  You walked through a dark tunnel; got on a people mover; watched til you came to the end of the moving sidewalk; and that was your view of the penguins.  The penguin at the Indianapolis Zoo is way better.

There was an "outside" viewing area" for the penguins.  But only one or two birds were out there.  And I think they were out there only because a worker had been feeding them.

Daddy loved these beluga whales.  Seriously.  He thought they were fascinating.
He took 44 pictures of them.  Seriously.