San Diego Zoo

We started our day with an early morning flight from Chicago to Los Angeles. The flight was delayed by yet-another American Airlines overnight maintenance issue, which saw us being moved to another gate. But at least they didn't cancel the flight. On arrival in L.A., we got a rental car and started on our drive to San Diego, stopping off at Houston's along the way for some chicken fingers. Sadly, they didn't serve the wonderful shoestring fries any longer. Our original plan was to go to the San Diego Safari Park, but Rebecca learned they had her favorite animal, the sloth, at the San Diego Zoo, so we went to the Zoo instead. But the sloths spent most of their time asleep and all we got to see was a pair of eyes and a tiny hand. Rebecca did, however, purchase a stuffed sloth to spend time with the rest of the week. We toured the zoo in unseasonably warm heat for San Diego and took full advantage of the park's refillable souvenir soda offer, getting at least five refills. One of the pandas was celebrating its birthday while we were there, so we joined in wishing the little guy a happy panda day. After the zoo, drove to our hotel for the night, a Holiday Inn not far from the University of California San Diego. We walked across the parking lot to a Chili's for dinner and then headed to bed.