We wandered through the reptile house and the bird aviaries
.
Past the lions, tigers and... no, not bears, but zebras. AJ was almost mesmerized by the giraffes and I have to agree. They really are interesting, graceful animals... especially for how big they are.
My favorite was probably the gibbons, a small species of apes. They were so fun to watch. So energetic and playful, swinging through their cage and eating the leaves. I also liked the orangutans. They were just goofy-looking, but in a loveable kind of way. It was fun to watch them just laze around in the warm sunshine. It was awesome to just wander around, hand-in-hand, not worrying about anything but what we should go see next.After we left the zoo we braved rush-hour freeway traffic and headed for the nearest Best Buy. We were looking for a couple filters for our camera for our trip to the beach. On our way the rental car started getting too hot, hot enough to worry AJ, so we parked it and went into Best Buy. But as luck would have it, we had no idea what we were looking for and ended up returning the filter we bought there. We were told about a camera store in a mall across the street and decided we might as well, since we couldn't drive our car, as it was still overheating. We still had no idea what we were looking for and we ended up returning that filter too. This time we used a couple brain cells and took the camera in with us and asked for help from someone who actually knew what they were talking about. We finally got the ones we wanted and that actually fit the camera.
We got back out to the car and AJ decided we should just get another one that we wouldn't have to worry about. He made a couple calls and then we headed out to the airport to exchange our overheating engine. The first car they gave us was another Sonata, but when AJ opened the door he nearly choked on all cigarette smoke that was just waiting for an escape route. So, he went back in and got a different car. They must have been trying to punish us for being so difficult or something, because they gave us a Chevy HHR. Not only was it the ugliest thing I have ever seen in my life, it was the most uncomfortable car I have ever ridden in. And the visibility was horrible. AJ likened the windows to portholes on a ship. And it didn't have any of the fun little extras our first Sonata had. So, in a nutshell... I would never, ever recommend a Chevy HHR to anyone. Ever.
After we spent an hour at the airport, enough to make us sick of it, we pulled out the GPS and started for my grandma's place. To make matters worse, the computer running the GPS died and we didn't know where we were or where we were going. Luckily, AJ pulled out his phone and used his Blackberry Maps to get us to our bed. We finally found Hotel Grandma and Ruth and the service was impeccable. We were fed and entertained and then we blew up our air mattress and caught a few short hours of shut-eye.
At 5am we drowsily rolled outta bed an
d somehow into our clothes. AJ figured out where we were going and we got on the road. AJ drove and I 
slept our way across western 
California. I woke up just past Vallejo and we slowly made our way in rush-hour traffic to San Francisco. We stopped just before the Golden Gate 
Bridge and took some pictures. After that we worked our way down to Pier 39, found parking and walked along the boardwalk. There were some old Navy vessels that we went and looked at.
At 10:17am we bought tickets and made our way into The Aquarium of the Bay. AJ had never been to an aquarium before and it was neat to watch him. Our favorite part of the aquarium, though, was the Touch the Bay. They had three tanks with different creatures in them and we got to touch them! It was so neat. In one tank, they had Bat Rays and Skates. I didn't touch the Skates but the Bat Rays were silky and smooth, almost like wet velvet. In the second tank they 
had 
Leopard
Sharks. They were rough and scaly, but they looked sleek and soft. It's neat to be able to say "I've touched a shark!" And in the third tank there were sea stars, sea urchins and a couple little fish. The sea 
stars were hard and bumpy. The sea urchins were spiny, hard and bristly. They moved their spines toward your fingers when you touched them. It was kinda cool. My favorites were the sharks though. It was a lot of fun and we enjoyed playing with all the neato animals.After the aquarium, we drove back over the Golden Gate Bridge and took a few more pictures. We decided we were starving to death and stopped at In-n-Out. Oh boy, it was so delicious. We made our way over some amazingly twisty-turny roads and up the pennisula to Point Reyes
Lighthouse. You have to park and walk about a half-mile to the lighthouse. On our way, we saw a deer standing just off the road in the brush. It was pretty neat that she was so close. We had to take some pictures.
Before we got to the lighthouse I had warned AJ about the 308 steps to the lighthouse, but apparently I built it up too much and he was a little disappointed. He was expecting an East Coast lighthouse. But alas, we walked down those notorious 308 steps and took a couple pictures. We were lucky and they actually opened the lighthouse and we were able to go inside and see it. The park ranger explained how it works and everything. It was pretty neat. We decided to
head out to the tidepools and that meant the crazy, strenuous 308 steps back up to the top. Whew! What a workout!
We drove to the parking lot of McClure's Beach and began our hike down the mountain to the beach. It's kind of a steep little walk and my calves got yet another work out. When we got to the bottom of the mountain it opens up into the beach. AJ had never been to a real beach before and I absolutely love the way it opens out onto the beach. This is my favorite beach in the whole wide world. The tide was already starting to come back in and
so we didn't find a whole ton of tidepools to play in, but AJ did find a couple crabs and some sea anemones to poke with sticks. 
He's such a boy. He did find three sea stars in a crevase in the rocks. He pulled one out, cleaned all the grass and stuff off of it and I took pictures. We then climbed the rocks up to the top formation, one I have dubbed "The Thrones" because they look like three chairs. We spent close to an hour and a half sitting up there watching the waves roll in and the sun sink lower in the sky. It was absolutely perfect.We decided we probably better get headed back to Reno as we had quite the drive ahead of us. We started hiking back up the mountain and AJ spotted some elk in the brush. We watched them for a while. We finally reached the top and headed back down the twisty roads and back east to Reno, still spotting more elk. I fell asleep just as we started up Donner Pass and the next thing I knew we were pulling off the freeway in Sparks. We tried to quitely creep inside and up to bed and some much needed sleep. It was a long day. An amazing day, but long nevertheless. And despite all that, it was perfect. All a girl could ask for.
