California Road Trip!!!

We had a real YOLO moment in July when Don had a random five days off from work in his schedule.  I looked at Don and said, "road trip to San Diego?!"....done and done.  We YOLO-ed it even more when we decided to tack on an extra day last minute because we were having so much fun!  If you ask Auggie what his favorite part about San Diego was, he'll excitedly tell you, "we even decided to stay an extra day!".  Definitely worth it.

{Day 1:  Joshua Tree}

The first stop on our road trip was Joshua Tree.  I'd heard so much about it, so we detoured through the Mojave Desert for a quick one night stay.  Our drive was not without incident though...a one-lane road into the heart of the desert, an unfortunately timed broken train across the road, 110 heat and an unknown wait time, a turnaround back to civilization, and an extra 2.5 hours of driving around the desert...we finally made it to Joshua Tree.  

But there is always a silver lining.  The kids were somehow ok despite the loooong detour, and we arrived at our hike just in time for that perfect summer evening golden hour.  One small hike was all we had time for, but it was stunning.

{Day 2:  San Diego Safari Park}

The next morning we finished the drive to San Diego and had big Zoo plans when we arrived.  We couldn't decide between the San Diego Safari Park or the San Diego Zoo, so we did both!  I'm glad because the experiences were totally different, and we all had favorite things we loved from both parks.

The Safari Park highlights included a tram ride through the African Plains and walking around inside the kangaroo/wallaby enclosure.  A huge kangaroo jumped right in front of us!

One of our favorite things to do when we travel is to put the kids to bed, order new food without them, eat and relax.  The first night in San Diego, we were sitting out in the courtyard eating our late night tacos when sweet little Auggie came sneaking down the stairs, wondering what party he was missing.  

Well, have a taco, kid!  We love our little party crasher.   

{Day 3:  San Diego Zoo}

We started the morning with smoothies on the beach and then spent the day at zoo #2.  The San Diego zoo is amazing.  I think its claim to fame is how big it is and how many animals it has.  We saw so many animals everywhere.

{Day 4:  Exploring San Diego}

Day four was our "extra day" that I'm pretty sure Auggie will never forget 😆.  We booked a hop on/hop off bus tour that morning and boarded in Old Town.  Don and I weren't sure how the bus tour would go, but it ended up being one of the best decisions we made the whole trip.  The kids loved it, and we explored so much of San Diego in a short amount of time...Old Town, the Waterfront, downtown, Comicon, and Coronado Island to name a few!

We didn't take any pictures, but we also spent our last evening with a friend of Don's from residency, Jeff Gusenburg.  They have an orange tree in their front yard, and we picked some oranges to make fresh juice...there is nothing more California than that!  What a fun trip.