San Diego!

Tuesday July 5th-

With everyone else heading back to work, Nate and I headed down towards San Diego for a two days.  We drove the 2 hours south and found a campsite available in Carlsbad about 45 minutes north of San Diego.  The campsite we had was across the street from the ocean for $35 and the ocean sites were $50.  It's a lot for a campsite, but the view was definitely worth it.

Check out the giant topiary Elephant!

After setting up our tent and praying that it would still be there when we returned to sleep in it in the evening, we drove down south to the San Diego Zoo!  We loved spending the day in the world famous zoo checking out the animals and enjoying the warm weather.  The whole zoo feels like you're in a rainforest, as the exhibits aren't really separated by roads and open grassy fields like we're used to at Brookfield Zoo in Chicago.  Instead, the paths between the exhibits curve around hills with unique plants overhead and impenetrable walls of live bamboo in between.

Since you've all seen animals before, here are some of our favorite photos from the day:

Baby Giraffe!!!

The bear was walking back and forth and bowing to the crowd. 

After the zoo, we drove down to the marina and stopped by the Midway aircraft carrier museum in the bay. Unfortunately, it was closed so we couldn't board and see the museum, but we enjoyed walking around.

They also have a giant replica of the famous New York "Kiss"  from VJ-Day that can be found in most girls' dorm rooms at U of I.

On our way back North to our campsite, we accidentally drove past the Caterpillar subsidiary in San Diego, Solar Turbines.  It's right on the coast near the airport and we could definitely enjoy a year in San Diego if it's one of Nate's job options in the future with Caterpillar.  We'll see what God has in store.  We also drove through Mission Beach and La Jolla which are both beach towns, but Mission Beach seems to be the normal people's beach town whereas La Jolla is the super rich people's beach.  We'll have to come back some day and enjoy the beaches again when we have more time.

The sunset at La Jolla

Luckily our tent was still in our site when we returned and we crashed after such a long day.

Wednesday July 6th- 


After packing up our campsite, we headed back south to La Jolla to go snorkeling in the bay.  We rented our gear at a good price, trekked down to the beach and dipped in the cold water.  The water was 68 degrees, which we thought was pretty chilly and most people wore wet suits.  Too bad we're on a budget and didn't want to rent the wet suits.  We were cold (read as 'Andrea was cold'), but we survived.

Nate LOVES snorkeling, loves seeing all the fish, taking pictures and videos and everything.  He's great at diving down deep between the kelp just to get the best look at them.  I on the other hand am not the biggest fan of diving down with the snorkel gear as I'm pretty bad at getting the water out of the snorkel tube when I get back to the surface.  I'm much happier floating on the surface and watching Nate and the fish from above.

After braving the cold for a while, we warmed back up in the sun despite the rising tide.  I wish we could have stayed the rest of the day laying in the sun and enjoying the waves, but we had a date with Craig and Caitlin McGrath at UCLA for the evening.

We packed up and persevered through the LA traffic to meet up with the McGraths.  Craig and Caitlin were YoungLife leaders with us in Champaign.  They graduated last year, got married last summer and moved out to L.A for Caitlin to go to medical school and for Craig's masters in aerospace engineering.   We admire both of their work ethics and know that God has great plans for their family.

Craig and Caitlin took us to Venice beach to see the canals and then on to Santa Monica.  Route 66 runs from Chicago to Santa Monica pier so we had to get a picture next to the big map!  We may not have followed Route 66 exactly, but we have crossed over it several different times along our journey!

The Carousel from 'The Sting', one of Nate's favorite movies. 

After the Santa Monica pier we walked to get dinner at Cabo Cantina for some delicious Mexican food and then on to UCLA campus for ice cream sandwiches.  Unfortunately, we didn't get a good picture with Craig and Caitlin (just the one of their backs), but we did have a great time visiting with them and catching up.