vacation recap

We're back and we're tired. Here are the highlights:

We stayed two blocks from the ocean in a town due North of San Diego called Oceanside. No Seaside, but still very quaint. It was a million-dollar three bedroom villa that easily slept 8-10 people. Complete with vaulted ceilings and a "gourmet kitcken". That was nice.

We went to San Diego Zoo's Wild Animal Park on Tuesday. None of their animals are in "cages" per se. They have open spaces where the animals can roam free (well...sorta, but you get the picture). They have this thing where you can buy a ticket and ride in a truck that goes into the "wilderness" and feed them upclose and personal. That was pretty cool. We got to feed Ivan, the giraffe and saw rhinos, antelope, and hippos doing what they do in the wild.

Wednesday we went to Disney Land. It really is the happiest place on earth. I was really impressed with a newer ride, "Indiana Jones". Wow! What a rush. I remember seeing something about it on TV. That's a must, if you're there. We also got to go on the newer "Pirates of the Caribbean" ride...complete with Johnny Depp's Jack Sparrow peppered along the way. The only downer about this was we were with my 7 year old step nephew who got the crap scared out of him at Indiana Jones so in order to ease his nerves we had to keep convicing him that everything was fake. It really took the magic out of it for me because when I said, "Wow, Jacob! Look at the fire flies!" he said, "No Toby, those are little lights on a piece of string...see?" "*sigh* yes, Jacob, you're right. It's fake. Fake, fake fake." It was a crime. "Space Mountain" got a facelift as well. What I liked most was there were speakers behind my head and the music was in sync to what we were doing. So while we were going up the first hill, I could hear it counting down to "blast off" then there was a really cool techno-james bond-esque soundtrack that went right along with what we were doing. Talk about envelopment. It was awesome.

Then there was the Nordstrom Anniversary Sale. Let's just say that Colleen and I saved a ton of money. It was great. And the wedding (the whole reason for the trip) was beautiful.

All the other days were either spent on the beach, or lounging around back at the house. Very restful...but yet tiring all the same.

But now it's back to life. Back to reality.


(Sunset at Oceanside taken on my little sony cyber-shot)