Great West Adventure - Day 6 - It's a zoo out there

In case there was any question to the subtitle of yesterday’s post, we were watching the weather where the cute weather lady exclaimed that the clouds were pretty moist and deep, and that she wouldn’t be surprised to see them start to rain at any time. I found that amusing - I suppose I’ve never really progressed past the age of 12 as far as my maturity level goes…

I again find myself 3 days tardy in posting this, so I think this will be pretty short. Today was about the zoo. The day started out a bit earlier than any of us would have liked. Around 6:25 AM, the hotel’s fire alarm system started going crazy. We awoke in a daze, but figured out what was going on well enough to put some clothes on, grab our “necessities,” (my wallet and keys to the car - oh, and the kids), and get outside. We weren’t outside more than a couple of minutes before they gave us the all clear stating that it was a false alarm. No kidding… By this time, Quin was finally starting to wake up. As I was holding him in my arms, he took his head off my shoulder, looked up at me and said, “please I push the button?” Apparently to a kid of three, pushing the elevator button is pretty much the coolest thing you could ever hope to do. The entire week he would dash to the elevator anytime we hinted at going up or down in it. Ethan caught on, being the mean big brother, and taunted him at every turn, threatening to push the button instead of him, sometimes succeeding. Of course, being the opportunistic parents that we are, we used it as leverage to get Quin to do the things we wanted him to do. So, whenever we were heading to the elevator, he would ask us if he could be the one to push the button…

After our early start we needed to find a good place for breakfast. I turned to my mad internet skills and consulted “the Google” to find (The Old Townhouse Restaurant)[http://www.oldtownhouserestaurant.com/] at Ocean Beach. Now able to navigate the city proficiently, I got us there with minimal assistance from my navigator (Jenny) who manned the iPhone map application. The restaurant was on Newport Ave near the beach. We parked on the street right in front of a hostel, which I mistook as some sort of halfway house - I suppose I wasn’t that far off… The restaurant didn’t look like much on the outside, but the food and the service were fabulous!

The zoo is pretty much what you would expect from one of the most famous zoos in the world. Completely beautiful. Most of the time I didn’t even know we were in a zoo. The animals just blended in with the surroundings. We did get lost from time to time before we finally figured out the lay of the land. Of course we were surrounded by some of the most exotic animals we’ve ever seen, but Quin was most impressed by the squirrel that passed in front of us. That’s sort of his thing right now. Anytime he sees a squirrel, regardless of what he’s doing, he will stop everything, point, and scream “squirrel!” Have you ever seen the Pixar movie Up! I believe it was Doug the dog. Anyway, here’s a link:

We headed back to the hotel pretty early by our going standards, 4:00, where we finally got to enjoy the pool for a bit while Jenny and I enjoyed a beer on the patio. We finished the night at (Oggi’s Pizza and Brewing Company)[http://www.oggis.com/] which was a short walk from our hotel room. The kids ate free, the beer was adequate, and the pizza above average.

After that, we were spent. Quin fell asleep by 7:30 again, the rest of us watched Gulliver’s Travels on HBO (seemed like a short movie to me, though I may have napped through some of it).