San Diego Vacation

Back in early May, we went on a family vacation to southern California. It all started when Kevin asked me to purchase his airline ticket and 4-night hotel reservation to go to his annual American Albacore Fishing Association meeting in San Diego. The wheels started turning in my head. After running figures and decided it wouldn't cost much more for our whole family to drive and stay at one of my aunt's timeshare condos, we soon made plans for our longest road trip yet! It's over twenty straight hours of driving to San Diego!! Whew! There were some crazy-insane moments (especially the first day when none of the kids would nap in the van!), but overall the driving went decently well and all of our adventures were an absolute blast! After checking out prices at various well-known attractions and being shocked at the prices (San Diego Zoo - $44 for an adult ticket!!!; SeaWorld, a whopping $87 for an adult!!), I had a list of free and cheap ideas so that we could do San Diego on a limited budget! And, we decided to renew our Seattle Museum of Flight membership so that we could get into three museums in San Diego as well as several along our route all for only $40 TOTAL! Now that's a deal! ;o)

First Day: After waking up at 4am, lots of driving, driving, driving, and then a quick stop at a museum in Redding, CA. Then dinner with an old family friend in Sacramento and arriving at our condo in Angels Camp, CA at 10pm.

Turtle Bay Museum in Redding

Outside IHOP with Grandpa Wenger

Second Day: A day of relaxation - a hike through the Big Trees Calaveras State Park, playing at a park in Angels Camp, swimming in the condo pool (shivering in the 67-degree weather - we weren't prepared for that as the day before had been 90s!), and a hot dog barbecue back at the condo.

Angels Camp is famous for the frogs Mark Twain wrote about when he lived there ("The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County").

Don't you just LOVE this cute Gymboree swimming outfit I got for only a few dollars on major clearance?!?

Third Day: Continued driving south to San Diego, with stops at Fort Tejon, the Vista Del Lago Visitor's Center (not your average visitor's center!), and Downtown Disney. Arrived at the condo at 11pm.

LOTS of sitting in the car!! (not always smiles!) :)

Fort Tejon

Downtown Disney

Fourth Day: Enjoyed the sweeping views at Mt. Soledad, ate a picnic lunch overlooking the ocean at La Jolla (and got attacked by seagulls - one actually stole my sandwich right out of my hand!!), walked down to the Children's Pool to see the seals, returned to the condo for nap time, and went to the AFFA barbecue at the hotel where Kevin would be going to meetings for the next three days.

Mt. Soledad

Children's Pool at La Jolla

AFFA Barbecue on the second story of hotel

Fifth Day: Kevin rode the train and then bus to the hotel for $5 (so glad we didn't have to get up early and take him!), and the kids and I met some friends (used to go to our church in Olympia) at a park in Mission Bay while we moms enjoyed catching up and the kids got to know each other (it'd been a few years). We then all headed over to tour Old Town San Diego - very cool and so extensive (and FREE)! After our friends left, we toured one more place: the Mormon Battalion Museum. Everything today was free! :) After dinner we went swimming in the condo pool.

Mission Bay Park

Old Town San Diego Historic Park

Panning for gold at the Mormon Battalion Museum

Sixth Day: The kids and I hit Balboa Park, a 1200-acre urban, cultural park with gorgeous architecture, 14 museums, numerous gardens and parks and home to the famous San Diego Zoo. We used our museum pass to get into the San Diego Air and Space Museum, the Natural History Museum, and the Rueben H. Fleet Science Center. We also got to ride the free trolley-looking tram around the park - which was a BIG highlight for Ben! :) We then picked up Kevin at 5pm across town from his meetings and drove over the big bridge to Coronado Beach for a lovely evening of playing in the sand and splashing in the water. We returned to the condo for a very late dinner and put 3 very tired out kiddos to bed!

Every morning, Jake woke up a bit earlier than the other two kids and so Jake and I spent some time enjoying the view on our condo's balcony. Sweet times. :)

Air and Space Museum

Botanical Building at Balboa Park

Every museum has a kids play/learning are now - so fun!

A perfect evening at Coronado Beach!

Seventh Day: Kevin had a half-day of meetings left and I had the responsibility of packing everything up and clearing out of the condo by noon. We made it...barely! Checked out at 11:55am. Phew! Since it was Ben's 4-year-old birthday, we had promised him we'd go back to Balboa Park (he REALLY wanted to show Daddy the anatomical dinosaurs at the Natural History Museum). I'd hoped to get an earlier start (don't I always?) and knew that now we'd hit LA traffic, but how could we go back on a promise to a birthday boy? :) So, back to Balboa Park we went and, besides the dinosaurs, we walked through the rose garden and cactus garden that we hadn't had time for the previous day (Abby had really wanted to do that), and then we gave Ben his birthday surprise: getting to ride on the miniature train at the park.

Natural History Museum

Rose Garden in Balboa Park

Birthday frosties

After driving all day, we stopped at a travel plaza of sorts in the middle of nowhere in California for birthday frosties at Wendy's and then jammied up the kids and kept on a driving. We'd already had so many questions of "Are we home yet? Are we in Washington yet?" and so the kids were astounded when we told them that even when the woke up in the morning after driving all night we would STILL be in California - man, that state is LONG!! We did end up stopping at a rest area for a couple hours for Kevin to sleep a bit and Jake woke up as soon as the car stopped and wanted out of his car seat. Amazingly, he settled down fairly quickly and went to sleep on a pile of blankets on the front passenger seat. It was so cute. :)

Eighth Day: As stated, the kids awoke while we were still in California when Kevin had to stop for gas at 6:30am just past Redding. We drove a bit further and had breakfast at the Weed, CA McDonald's with a most spectacular view of Mt. Shasta. In Oregon we stopped at the Children's Museum in Eugene for a nice break for the kids (that museum pass again!) and then continued home and arrived around 8pm. What a loooong drive!

Early morning bathroom break at a gas station in Redding. :)

The whole vacation was a whirlwind of activity and sight-seeing (well, not much "activity" when we were sitting in the car for days on end!). It was so, so, so much fun and I'm so glad Kevin let us tag along to San Diego. The kids still talk about the trip fairly often and we all dream of going back again someday. And, honestly, I think I fell in love with San Diego. :o) There just wasn't anything not to like about that town. It's a perfect vacation destination (even for families who have to do it on the cheap!)! :)

(You can check out tons more pictures from our trip in my Facebook album)