We went to the San Diego Wild Animal Park on Saturday, due mostly to my new philosophy of "Schedules are for people who aren't on vacation". I used to treat vacations like most other aspects of my life -- I'd come up with detailed schedules, work out contingency plans, and get frustrated when others didn't understand the importance of sticking with the schedule. Basically, I was a submariner. (I also packed way more clothes than I needed to -- I'd count the number of days, and multiply by two to get the number of separate outfits I'd need; after all, I might get wet on all of those days, and would need a change of clothes.)Since then, I've bought into the theory that vacationing means a vacation from sticking to a schedule -- just do what you feel like doing at the moment. On Saturday, our plan was to get down to the Main Base and get tickets for the amusement parks we're hitting this week, and then go to the San Diego Zoo (because, as everyone knows, there's nothing in the world cuter than a baby panda). We ended up hanging out at the Exchange a little longer than expected, so we didn't get to the Zoo until a little after noon. It was a really nice Saturday at the beginning of a 3-day weekend, though, so it turns out that everyone else in San Diego had decided to go to the Zoo as well. After driving around in the parking lot for 40 minutes without finding a spot, we decided it wasn't going to happen, so that's why we headed 35 miles north to the Wild Animal Park.
It'd been 2 1/2 years since we'd been in San Diego, but based on the one data point of seeing freeway traffic on a holiday Saturday, and seeing more new houses on top of hills next to the freeways, I'd say the SD area continues to get more crowded. That doesn't mean that it's not still just about perfect.
