San Diego

After our cruise, we traveled a few hours south to San Diego.  Our two big activities here:

1. The zoo

My favorites were the koala bears and panda bears.

It was a beautiful zoo.

With lots of interesting plants too.

I don’t what that is (below), but it’s growing out the side of the tree.

I was just as impressed with the landscaping as I was with the animals. Here’s Jason in some thick vegetation.

Our 2nd attraction was Sea World.

We’re got a great deal on a hotel right downtown, so enjoyed walking around downtown too.

Our view out the window

 

And Jason’s view :)

Mexican Riviera Cruise

We’ve been talking about going on a cruise for years…and we finally did it!  We took a seven day cruise with Royal Caribbean.
Here’s Jason’s reaction as we parked at the port.

Because, look at the size of our ship!!

We had a great stateroom.

 

As we had heard, our stateroom attendant left several surprises for us.

 

We dressed up for formal dinners.

In the beautiful dinning room where we enjoyed a 3 course meal each evening.

We enjoyed some Mexican beaches.

 

Kayaked around that island out there.

Enjoyed the local beverages.

 

Luckily didn’t have to use the lifeboats, but the crew did a drill and we saw them all out in the water.

 

Lots of fun on the ship as well.

The caption’s welcome.

The promenade.

 

The pool deck

Shows in the theater.

All in all, a great time.  The service was fantastic – we felt spoiled the entire time and the food was really good.  A bit too much food though…I know we both put on some weight.

Los Angeles

We stayed with my old college friend Rebecca in LA for a few nights.  She has a beautiful home and gladly cooked several meals for us.  She also offered to be our tour guide and took us all over the city – Mulholland Drive, Rodeo Drive, Sunset Blvd, the farmers market, Chinese Theater, Hollywood Blvd.  She also took us to a few of her local favorite restaurants.

We had a great guestroom with a fridge stocked with drinks and snacks.  And, we again had beautiful weather…

 

 

Death Valley National Park

The drive to Death Valley is long and it’s amazing how much of the land out here is desert.  We were careful to have plenty of gas and water…and we were glad!

The campground….well, it is a desert.  No shade or structures at all. 

There’s some vegetation, in some areas…

 

This is the lowest point in North America, 282 feet below sea level.

Here’s a close up of the salt on the valley floor…

The late afternoon light up the landscape beautifully.  Such an interesting area…unlike any place I’ve ever been.

Next up…LA and the Tonight Show tomorrow.

Red Rock Canyon

On our way out of Las Vegas we stopped at this National Conservation Area.  We didn’t really do much but go on the scenic drive.  Vegas can be draining, so we were actually just more eager to get to Death Valley and set up our camp.

   

The arid landscape really reminds you that Las Vegas truly is in the middle of the desert.  It’s easy to forget when you are in all the lavish casinos that the surrounding landscape is so barren.

Las Vegas

We lucked out on our room in Vegas.  It’s a beautiful big room at Circus Circus for only $25/night!  Last time we came to Vegas we ended up gambling here because of the low limits on the tables.  The same is true on this trip…we headed down to the other end of the strip, but we couldn’t do the $25 minimum bet tables. We’ve spent a lot time in our room doing work.  I’m taking two online classes, so I’ve done quite a bit of reading, writing, and test taking.  Here’s Jason at work. Yes, he’s got two laptops going…

A few more hours of work and then we’re off to Death Valley…

More Zion NP hiking

Our luck with the weather continued on our second day at Zion.  The leaves were beautiful. I absolutely love being outside in nature on days like this – makes me want to work at a National Park again or go a on quest to visit all national parks.  It’s just my favorite thing…

Some places the leaves were just starting to turn yellow.

And in other places there were bright red leaves.

Of course, being Zion NP, not everywhere has trees.