San Diego Trip - Day 5

Wild Animal Park and drive home

For our last adventure we had tickets to the Wild Animal Park. We almost put it off for another trip, but since we are planning to go to Disney Land in a couple weeks and Disney World in December, we weren’t sure we would make it back to San Diego. This was the hottest day by far, and since the Wild Animal Park is even further inland, it was that much hotter. I was so hot I was pouring water across the back of my neck! As soon as we entered the park one of the rangers noticed that Bradley had on heelys and made him take them off. He was so upset he cried and couldn’t get over it for about 20 minutes. It was a great way to set the tone for the day. We get the map of the park and start to study it. The park is huge, but there is a somewhat shorter route you can walk called the Safari Walk. Being the good parents that we are, we are determined to walk that Safari Walk. Once again this park is built in the foothills of mountains, so every walk from point a to point be is either an uphill climb or a downhill climb. This was not nice for our already weak leg muscles! About a third of the way through the Safari Walk we decide to give up and head back towards the train ride (another really steep walk up). We happened to walk by when the elephant show is about to start, so we give it a try. Cookie, the 52-year-old elephant is “asked” to perform behaviors. She’s not real cooperative, and Rick and I remember that the last time we sat down for this show she wasn’t real cooperative then either.

I just love this picture of the Rick and kids from behind looking at the pelican!

After the elephant show we made it to the train ride. It’s another 45 minute guided tour that takes you through the Asian enclosures and the African enclosures. These animals have huge places to roam and it’s really beautiful to see them in their somewhat natural environment. However, about 20 minutes into the train ride Ella starts flailing and screaming again. Nothing will appease her. It was the longest 25 minutes of the trip because people were starting to get annoyed, and there was nothing we could do about it. I was never so glad to see a train station in all my life!

The trip home that should have taken four and half or five hours wound up taking seven because of traffic, road work, and stopping for dinner once. When we could see the light from the Luxor shooting up into the sky, we could almost taste being home and out of the truck, but it still took another 30 minutes to get there. And, we are crazy enough to do this all again in 9 days!!