Friday was the last day at the Ocean Inn and staying on the beach, and we were going to miss it, but the plan was to hit the San Diego Zoo and drop off the minivan, so there was something to keep Katie happy for the rest of the day.

It was a lot of fun to be next to the ocean and enjoy the beautiful weather, but we took advantage of it while we were there. To enjoy our last morning at the beach, Katie busted out her running shoes and ran along the ocean boardwalk. It is such an active place. There are always tons of people running, biking, walking along the shore at almost any time of day. Katie even took off her shoes to run in the sand, that proved to be quite the workout.

So we checked out of the hotel and took the minivan to the San Diego Zoo to spend the day there. What a huge place! The Zoo looks more like a jungle than anything else, as it actually is one of the biggest Botanical Gardens in the US too. To qualify as a botanical garden, you have to have a certain number of species of plants. So it was quite the place. They had huge exhibits specifically for Bears, Elephants, Koala Bears, Gorillas, and a ton more. I've never been to a zoo with escalators, but this place definitely needed them. It was quite a hike from bottom to top a couple times. When we got there, one of the things included in our pass was the tour bus, so we hopped on that to figure out which parts of the park were the coolest so when we hopped out to walk, we wouldn't miss the best parts. Katie caught the best part of the zoo on her camera while we were at the Zebra area, so if anybody wants to see the picture, you'll have to ask her about it.

So after the long day at the zoo, we headed to drop the minivan back off at the shady rental place, because we didn't really feel like paying the $80 per day rental charge any longer. We knew it was actually cheaper to get a taxi ride everywhere than pay that much.

So we took all our luggage over to the Courtyard by Mariott Old Town, got our hotel room, which happened to be a suite, it was a welcome change from the crappy room at the Ocean Inn. I was able to use the $100 gift card that I got by winning the St. Luke's Survivor weight loss challenge a few months back. Then after getting our bags in the room, we drove to the rental place, dropped the minivan off, got a ride to the airport, then got a taxi to the Gaslamp District to grab supper, watch some Olympics, and just hang out and relax the rest of the night.

The Gaslamp District is really cool, all the restaurants have their menus outside, which is great for the bargain shopper to know what you are getting before you pay for it. And they also have the host or hostess outside to answer any questions and try and sell you on visiting their restaurant. It was a really fun area, and was really hopping on a Friday night.

So after we were done hanging out downtown, we headed back to rest for our next day's adventure, heading to Balboa Park and the San Diego Padres game versus the Phillies at Petco Park.