San Diego Day 5

This was the day we chose to go to the famous San Diego Zoo. It's really a huge zoo (http://www.sandiegozoo.org/zoo/zoo_map.html) and the map doesn't do justice to the hills. We did the bus tour first. Anna wasn't fond of it. She cried and tried to get off because it was too much like the airplane or maybe because she was simply tired. And it was an hour long ride with no chance to get off early. Luckily she settled down and things got better.

After the bus ride, we went to the children's section of the zoo. They have some cute things there that are smaller and closer together for the kids to see. Plus there was a petting zoo. William enjoyed touching the goats, but Anna wanted nothing to do with them.

After getting some lunch we decided to try the sky ride. It was included in our ticket, so I wanted to do it. Big mistake. Both kids were terrified and cried the whole time. It took us up to the far side of the park and dropped us without our strollers and with two kids who refused to get back on. I was not excited about dragging two tired kids up and down all the hills back to the entrance to get our stroller and go home. We looked at the exhibits around the sky-ride exit and then, in a moment of weakness, I stole a stroller. There were like 20 of them parked at the entrance to th sky ride. They were park strollers, rented for the day by people who didn't bring theirs. They were all completely empty, no jackets or snacks or diaper bags, so they seemed pretty abandoned. I was fairly certain that people rented them, used them to get to the top of the zoo and then balked at the thought of pushing them all the way back to the exit. Instead, they paid the $2 or so to ride the sky ride, leaving their rented stroller high and dry. That was my theory anyway. After pushing Anna around in one for a while, my conscience got to me and I tried to return it. Anna wasn't having any of that. She screamed and clung to the stroller for dear life. There was no way I would get her to walk the miles back to the exit. After seeing another family load into one of the unclaimed strollers, I asked the woman at the food booth beside them if I could take one too. She said sure and confirmed my theory of their being abandoned. I took a double one this time so that William could sit with Anna and started on the long journey back to the front of the zoo. Anna promptly fell asleep and I took the walk pretty slowly, being tired and hot myself. It took us about an hour to get back to the bottom of the sky ride where my little stroller sat patiently waiting. Anna again threw a fit when I tried to switch her over to our stroller. I guess she really liked the hard plastic of the zoo stroller better than our softly padded one. But I bribed her with ice cream and we made the switch. By the time we were done, I was ready to collapse. William wanted to ride the bus tour again, but Anna cried when we talked about it, so we headed to the car to go home instead.

On the way to the car we passed a little train ride that went through the park near the zoo. It looked like fun and Anna acted like she wanted to do it, so I bought us all tickets. As soon as we got on, Anna started to scream. She just wasn't in the mood for that kind of thing. Another failed attempt at amusing her, I guess. We made it through the trip with her crying and screaming and I headed to the car in defeat. It was not the best day of the trip, though it was slightly more fun than lying in bed with a migraine.