SUNNY SAN DIEGO

I'm the type of person where you never really know what you're going to get. I can be calm and calculated. Or I can be spunky and spontaneous. Our October break brought out the latter in me. About two and a half weeks ago, I decided to book a family vacation on a whim. I have known for a few years that San Diego offers quite a few attractions FREE to kids during the month of October (with a purchasing adult). But when I found out that the San Diego Zoo offered TEN FREE KIDS per paying adult, our trip was booked within 24 hours. We were able to get 2 adult zoo tickets and 2 rooms for two nights at a nearby hotel for about $400 (for my family of EIGHT). It was a pretty incredible deal. Since we currently have a 4th grader, we also decided to take advantage of the Every Kid in a Park program put on by the National Park Foundation and hit Joshua Tree National Park on our way to San Diego. We quickly realized that Joshua Tree is the type of place best explored over multiple days - camping and hiking around the park. Regardless, we had fun walking through the cholla cactus garden, climbing around on some of the rock formations, and, of course, spotting the ever peculiar looking joshua tree. Day two, a Monday, was the San Diego Zoo. We arrived right before the park opened. This was definitely a bonus because we spent a better majority of the morning feeling as if we had the zoo mostly to ourselves. We spotted grizzlies and gibbons, gorillas and gators. Sadly, the pandas returned back to China in April, but this didn't stop me from getting a picture with a map of China for my little Chinese students. After six hours and about 5 miles on foot, we were all feeling a little over it. We stuck it out one hour longer and rode the bus tour, but were ready to leave well before closing. We returned back to our hotel with treats in hand and spent the late afternoon at the pool. Day three, and our last day there, we made a last minute decision to visit the USS Midway and it did not disappoint! In fact, the Midway was probably the favorite to most. We, again, took advantage of kids being free in October and got onto the Midway after purchasing 2 adult tickets for $21 a piece. We spent a few hours touring the decommissioned aircraft carrier. We went in jets and helicopters. We went up in the island and down below decks. We chatted with some of the sweetest docents and the kids even earned their wings. It was awesome. Once we had had our fill, we hit the road and headed home. It was a great little trip!