This day began with us checking out of our San Diego hotel and driving up to Escondido to Tanya and Joe's house. It was really nice getting to see their place after 15 years. And fun to show the kids the Bev Doolittle paintings that captured my love a long long time ago. All the indian paintings and artifacts. We saw the room where Magan and I and a little Baby Sam stayed. And the children got to explore and learn how real Californians live. They have vegetable gardens, and Ruby got to go with Tanya to pick some. They have some really cool hummingbird feeders where we learned that Joe added some drugs to his mixture that make the birds never want to leave. Davis loved the idea of growing many of the flowers back at home. And they even have solar panels for electricity, how cool is that, and apparently from Joe, it is MUCH cheaper for them. So while we did not get to stay with Tanya and Joe, as Granny and Granddaddy did, this was a great morning to connect a little bit better with them while out in CA.
Our visit on this day was to the San Diego Safari Park. While everyone says you must go to the San Diego Zoo, we had already been there, and I did not want to go again. And the Safari Park is only about 10 miles from Tanya's house. Again, their membership and friends that had extra guest passes were super awesome because we only had to pay for Ruby to get in.
There were alot of wild animals in this park but the one strange bird Ruby could not figure out was Uncle Joe. I caught one picture of them chatting at the hot air baloon, but it was not uncommon for Joe to make one of his outlandish statements, and Ruby cut her eyes at him "Really?" She would ask...over and over again, never really trusting this new guy, but enjoying the strange conversations. At one point Joe said "Isn't Tanya ugly?" to which she replied "Why would you say that?". And the continued running joke about picking flowers continued her at the safari park with Ruby giving Joe the stink eye when he saw her with a new flower "accidentally" picked and for each new item she found to climb.
We also learned that Tanya and Joe know every plant name known to man. We also realized that the Safari Park is about 9 times bigger than the zoo, and we had to walk a long way to make it thru in one day. This day was filled with more bathroom stops that I care to remember, even with bathroom stops within the long line at the African Tram. We ate some more paninis for lunch, and was treated with a fbomb filled conversation going on with two guys at the table behind us...leading us to finally get up and move outside. Magan got a mug that had one of the Safari park's mottos "Save the Chubby Unicorns" speaking about the Rhinos.
A really fun day, and our most time to visit with Tanya and Joe. We moved into another hotel that evening in Escondido, and while the kids played in the pool, I picked up In and Out Burgers. I can see why people in Cali love them, they are very good. And I was impressed with that almost Chick-Fil-A level of speed and service (I said almost). Back at the hotel, Sam did some geocaching, and that is when I googled Escondido crime, and found out why there where so many signs about locking cars, and that the hotel was locked up earlier than I ever remember a hotel locking up, so Sam was told to wrap it up quickly. It was a nice evening, as we turned on Hulu and all laughed through about 3 episodes of the Cosby show. The captured memories of the kids all laughing at Bill Cosby's father's day gifts don't seem to make it onto the camera, but those smiles are clearly seen in my mind, and perhaps with these words, you kids may remember them and see them below in those areas between the pictures.
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