A day at Sea World

Liz has come down with a cold and went to bed early last night, after telling me she wouldn't be coming to Sea World today. That meant I went with JE, his school-chum W, and W's mom C. C is a CBA, or a Chinese-born American, who speaks very little english, but her english is still better than my chinese.

When I got up this morning I was not feeling too good either, nose was running and I had a tickle in my throat. Maybe Trader Joe's Airborne came through because I'm feeling pretty good now. I decided the kids had been told they were going to Sea World, and so were looking forward to it, so I might as well tough it out and take them. I'd already popped an allergy tablet when I got up (& taken the Airborne) but before leaving I took a couple of Dayquil as well. That might not have been such a wise move because halfway to San Diego I noticed I was having trouble keeping my eyes open. When I found myself drifting towards the left of the lane, and realized I'd just had my eyes closed for a good couple of seconds, I decided it was time to pull over. We pulled into a gas station, had a bit of a stretch, and one Snickers bar & one Full Throttle later we were back on our way and I was feeling good!

The day was kind of interesting. C and I had a bit of chat, as much as the language barrier would let us. JE & W were like the proverbial Odd Couple. Best of friends one minute, trying to kill each other the next. It was a strange day. We went on the Wild Arctic ride, one of those gyroscope rides that tricks you into thinking you're doing something you're not. In Wild Arctic's case it makes you think you're on a helicopter flying over the Arctic, spying on animals, dodging falling rocks and avoiding a blizzard. JE is not too fond of roller coasters, but Wild Arctic is not a roller coaster and I knew he'd like it once it started. I explained to C what the deal was with Wild Arctic, or at least I think I did, so she had no problems going in. I forgot all about W and his mild case of motion sickness (sans the vomiting) on the way down watching JE play Gameboy & DS. As soon as the ride started up W leaned his head on C's shoulder and closed his eyes, opening them occasionally and almost immediately closing them again. But as we were exiting the ride once it was over W was the first to shout "That was cool!"

We saw pretty much everything there is to see at Sea World, that would be of interest to 6-year old boys. We didn't do the log plume ride, or any of the roller coasters (except for Wild Arctic, which isn't a roller coaster), but we saw all of the shows except for the Dolphin Show (which I figured was practically the same as Shamu, just with smaller mammals.) The Dolphin Show also started at about the same time as the Sea Lion & Otter show, so that was the one we saw instead. We also didn't watch R.L. Stine's "Haunted Lighthouse (in 3D)" because the boys vetoed that as soon as I asked if they wanted to see a scary movie. It's not that scary unless you're six years old ;)

The drive home was horrible. Traffic was bumper to bumper almost all 130 miles of the trip, and when we hit the rain in Los Angeles it only made it worse. I think it took us close to three hours to get home (maybe longer). Highlight of the return trip was JE asking W if he'd watched "Grandma got run over by a Reindeer", which was on the TV last night. W said he hadn't. JE said "I did, and guess what? The Grandma got run over by a Reindeer!"

Now I'm home, and I think it's time for coffee.