Lions, tigers and bears, but no ghosts

So, after all of my bellyaching on Thursday about rooming with a ghost this weekend, it turned out that I wasn't staying in the Del after all, but the Lowes a few miles down the road! A normal person might have been disappointed with this turn of events, but, nice as the Del was, I would much rather stay in a slightly less fabulous hotel so long as it's not haunted.

Not that the Lowes was exactly slumming it. Here was the view from one side of the hotel:

And here was the view from another:

Life could be worse, I suppose.

We were staying on the island of Coronado, just west of downtown San Diego. When we arrived on Saturday, the temperatures were in the high 70's or low 80's, and so went to the beach, which was unlike anything I've ever seen. The sand was the absolute finest I've ever felt in my life. It had the consistency of baby powder, or, more morbidly, ash. Even more unique, the sand had fine grains of gold something running through it for the entire length of the beach. I don't know what it was, but if a cruise ship carrying industrial vats of micronized glitter were to have spilled its wares ashore, that would seem like a perfectly reasonable explanation.

Saturday night we went into the Gaslamp district for dinner and drinks, and while the downtown area might have seemed fun to me in the years most immediately following college, it was a bit young and overdone for my taste. Not that I didn't have fun, of course. Or stay out until one in the morning.

On Sunday we went to the famous San Diego Zoo, which was very impressive and very LARGE. It took a good four hours to see maybe 80% of the entire zoo; fortunately for you all, I've condensed the best parts into a quick little Flickr album that you can view right here.

All in all, it was a fantastic weekend. Sometimes I just feel so lucky, like I am living someone else's life. Although right now, I wouldn't mind just living a day in his: