San Diego, CA Day 6?

Nick: When you plan a day at the zoo, you may be tempted to stay but a few hours. Maybe see all the exhibits, maybe not, then head to a nice dinner somewhere else after walking around for a couple hours. In the case of the San Diego zoo, this is a mistake. The place is huge, the admission expensive, and so if you're gonna do it, do it right. We did. Arriving at 9am and leaving at 5pm, you might say Brian and I put in a good day's work of appreciating all God's creatures, even the smelly, weird looking ones.

Brian: But I can speak for both of us when I say that the San Diego Zoo is worth every penny. We took our time in the exhibits with the intention of spending a full day, but there was so much to see I'm still not sure we covered it all. There were a bunch of monkeys that were obsessed with this stick, and a baby panda, and about a million birds, no less than eleven elephants, big cats of all stripes, spots, and solids, and horrifying snakes. The trained animal show was amazing; dancing sea lions, and Top Gun birds that do flybys on request. I think our pictures will speak a thousand words for this post (if we can ever figure out how to transfer them from the camera).

Nick: We also rode the Skyfari, which is a cool little lift that goes over the entire park. And a double-deckered bus. Best animals: meerkats, which were very active: rambunctious even. Bugs in general. The little monkeys, because they remind us of ourselves. Also, tigers are cool. As the sun went down on the man-made jungle, we headed off to our hosts for the night, Steve and Leah's. They had a dog. We liked that dog. We also like Steve and Leah. Upon their recommendation, we hit up a local tapas restaurant with a killer happy-hour menu with eatables ranging from octopus (good) lamb skewers (good) steak tips (good) clams (good) stuffed peppers (good)...

Brian: ...and double shots of Patron (great). The greatest thing was that Steve and Leah bought the whole meal, and also bought a positive review from their first CouchSurfers ever. Just kidding guys, you would've gotten a positive review even if we went dutch. So we picked up some Pacifico on the way home (our treat this time) and passed them around while sharing a night of hilarious story telling and camaraderie and catching up on old Office episodes. By the way their dog's name was Minger (like the British term for a hideous person). Brian and Nick, out baby yeah.

Williams, AZ through Flagstaff, AZ

Nick: Happy Birthday Brian. I'd never have guessed that we'd still be on the road on February 1st, so I didn't really, like, get you anything. But hey, let's go to the Grand Canyon. That'd be pretty cool, right? Yeah. Drive, drive, drive. Is it me, or is it a little chilly in these parts... Wow Grand Canyon, I didn't realize you'd have mountains of snow all over the place. Oh well, I guess you were kind of pretty or whatever. We have photos, readers can decide for themselves.

Brian: The Grand Canyon is one of those places you have to see because a picture will never do it justice. That wont stop us from posting our pictures, but we recommend checking it out for yourself. And yes, there were several feet of snow on the ground. Apparently if you live in Flagstaff, or anywhere further north, you actually do experience winter weather. Who knew? Another hilarious thing I should mention: remember a couple posts ago we were talking about that podcast we listen to called Uhh Yeah Dude? Well, one of the guys who makes the podcast gives his cell phone number out on the show. So I sent him a text asking him to text my other friend James (a huge fan of the show) and tell him not to forget my birthday. And he actually did it. Everyone involved was pretty stoked.

Nick: Little did Brian know I was secretly hoping he'd get another text from a very special person sometime that day... more on that later. After we'd had our fill of the majesty and splendor of a twenty-five dollar national park, we hit a coffee shop for a little blog sesh. During our time there, the music was calm and sensible. As they were closing however, the speakers dotting the establishment unleashed some of the craziest euro-industrial tunes we'd ever heard. Rock on girls that work at Late for the Train coffee shop. We headed out from there to our host for the night Megan's house. Did you remember that we've got a trunk full of Pacifico and Glenlevit? We did.

Brian: That was basically the last thing I remembered that night. Megan was a cute/cool girl with a good head on her shoulders and a not so secret love of sci-fi novels. We chatted and drank for a while and then went to bed... right?

Nick: In the morning, Brian asked me if we'd gone out. Yeah, dude, we went out. Yikes. We weren't out long, though. When we'd arrived, our host had forgotten her ID so she and I took a FIVE MINUTE trip back to her house to retrieve it. When we returned to the bar, Brian had lost his ability to walk in and out freely. In other words, the bouncer wouldn't let him back in. Brian, stand on one leg! Show him how sober you... OK, never mind. Let's head back.

Brian: It will forever remain a mystery how I got kicked out of that bar in under five minutes. Brian and Nick kicked out.