San Diego Padres at Petco Park

I finally made it to Petco Park. The last baseball stadium on the West Coast I had not visited. We stayed in the tall hotel in the middle of the picture, the Omni. It had its own sky bridge entrance to and from the game. It was the shortest commute ever!

I walked up to the valet to ask where we could buy tickets and he handed me 2 front row seats and said I could have them for free! Heavenly Father sure knows how to take care of me.

We found out it was LDS (Mormon) night. A BYU grad sang the national anthem.

This is where we sat, the front row in right field with our own personal table in the Jack Daniel's section.

Petco Park has a beach to play in right by Center field.

Our seats

We saw the Padres center fielder Cameron Maybin before the game.

We watched the Padres right fielder look at his text messages before the inning would start.  We still had his cell phone in his pocket when he would come up to bat! His batting average was the worst on the team. He struck out to end the game.What a bum!

This is my kind of Park!

We shared the tri tip nachos..not that great.

It was also fireworks night. While they were setting up the cheerleaders threw little foam balls into the crowd and I caught one.

What a great time! It only took 10 minutes to get from our seats to our hotel room. No one heckled me for wearing Giants stuff. I even got a high five for wearing my 49ers jacket. That doesn't happen in Seattle. 

San Diego Wild Safari Park

The next day we went to the San Diego Safari Park. We saw California Condors take flight, the whole lion family and we saw a cheetah run a 100 yd race at 70 mph!

When the wind picked up, the condors let fly!

The tram took us around the Safari to see all the Safari animals. We also saw a coyote on the other side of the fence trying to get some African deer dinner.

The cheetah was so FAST! 

The baby giraffe was one day old!

The daddy and mommy lion were actually up and at 'em!

We had a blast watching the 2 big lions do their thing.

Then they sat down and the mommy got a tongue bath from the daddy lion. 

I got one too.

That's a fun park! Maybe we should take the kids next time.

Good Eats!

We had some delicious food on our trip. I made sure to go to all three Man vs Food stops in San Diego. Phil's BBQ, Lucha Libre Burritos, and the Broken Yolk Cafe. I hope you're hungry!

This was the line. Good thing the line for take out was much shorter.

Tri tip and pulled pork sandwiches with a rib tickler. The best!

Lucha Libre Burritos

We shared the steak and shrimp burrito and the steak, avocado and french fry burrito!

We went to my Grandpa's favorite Greek place, Little Atheno's in downtown San Diego along the boardwalk.

We stopped at Casa de Frutta on the way back to S.F. because we saw a sign for Casa de Burrito until we found out it was in a Chevron. No thanks for Gas Station burritos.

Broken Yolk Cafe. I got a Monte Cristo for breakfast. A ham and swiss sandwich with french toast, powdered sugar, and strawberry jam. It was the best!

Ashley was brave and tried the eggs benedict for the first time. Yummy! 

Tri tip Nachos at the Padres game

A giant polish at the Giants game

My favorite burrito in the whole world at La Bambas doing my best "My Name is Earl" impression.

Burritos at Iguana Burritos, home of the 5 lb burrito also on Man vs Food San Jose.

Sharing fish, shrimp, scallops, and calamari on Catalina.

We went to my favorite burrito place in the bay area a few times. We went to Ashley's favorite Mexican food with her parents and to Bubba Gump's for some shrimp with them. Good food sure is fun to find. Sorry dad, the hot dog from the A's game doesn't make the list.

Catalina Island by Land

We took an inland bus tour of the island. Our bus driver was 6 days on the job, but full of gossip. Ashley was hanging onto me for dear life as we straddled the cliff side winding roads as our driver was still getting a feel for the roads and bus. 

On the bus

We had some spectacular views.

 A film crew brought over some male buffalo to shoot a movie, but they ran out of money and abandoned the buffalo. The Island ended up bringing over some females and now they have a free roaming herd.

They stopped at the airport Mr. Wrigley built by filling in 20,000 truckloads of dirt in between 2 mountains. This is a map of Catalina.

At the airport shop, you could buy Buffalo tacos, hot dogs, or burgers. Ashley didn't want anything to eat, only jewelry.

After a lot of driving we found "where the buffalo roam"

The tour guide couldn't see Barbara Streisand's or Tiger Wood's yacht.

The new bus driver let us get out, "I wouldn't recommend it, but you can go pet it" he said. 

10 feet was as close as we got.

I spotted the fox. Can you?

On the bus, Ashley snuggling up close, hanging on for dear life...lucky me

We saw Buffalo/bison, a deer, and a fox. Pretty cool.