San Diego - Sea World

This year's Rock 'n' Roll San Diego entry included a free pass to Sea World. I don't know that I would have made a special trip to Sea World, but since it was free, of course we had to go!

We didn't get to the park until after 1:00, and the very first thing we did was get fudge. You know, pre-race fuel and all.

I have to say, I'm not a huge fan of Sea World, it turns out. It was somewhat dirty and very crowded. I also found the animals depressing, despite the fact that I couldn't tell if any of them were actually unhappy. But how do you tell if a whale is unhappy? Oh yeah, they kill their trainer...

We did see some cool stuff, but we also noticed the lack of Disneyfication of Sea World, meaning that it just didn't have the same kind of magic.

After splurging on fudge, we scoped out a show called Cirque de la Mer. It was a water themed cirque style show, which was pretty cool.

We also visited the turtles. Jen dubbed them the Honey Badgers of the Sea because they "don't give a f**k." Then she did her turtle imitation over and over. Which, of course, we found hilarious. And we weren't even drinking...

They're really pretty cute.

I can relate to this guy...

We also took in the Shamu show. I'm so, so glad we did not sit close to the tank. They call it the "splash zone", but seriously, everyone in the bottom section of the stadium got completely drenched. It was way too cold to be soaking wet in San Diego.

I'm so glad I invested in a new camera!

Me, Tara, Jen, Abby & Mara (pic stolen from Mara)

Next we checked out the shark exhibit. I spent most of my time inside the exhibit trying to figure out how to use the settings on my camera, so all I really got was this pic of the jaw of a prehistoric shark called the Megalodon. I already knew a little about the Megalodon from getting sucked into Shark Week every year on the Discovery Channel.

Damn, those are some serious teeth.

Next we caught feeding time for the sea lions. Wow, are they aggressive. If a visitor had fallen into the sea lion tank during feeding time, I have no doubt that person would have been eaten. They may look cute and cuddly, but they take food very seriously.

This guy is NOT messing around about his food.

We called it a day early, since we needed to eat real food and go to bed at a decent time for the race the next day. Of course, we couldn't resist this photo opportunity on the way out...

Me, Jen and Abby

Tara and me

We left to have an amazing Greek dinner. Kudos to Abby for coming up with such a great place. The food was so good, I think that I over did it. I'll chalk it up to pre-race fueling. I didn't take any pictures of our dinner because I was too busy inhaling my food like I would never eat again. I will say that I discovered that I love dolmades, which I had tried once before and didn't enjoy. These were so good. I also learned that baba ganoosh is better than hummus. I never order that. Now I have two new favorites when I go have Greek food.

Next up is my race recap. Here's the link for Day 1 of our San Diego adventure.