Day 11 - We're all going to the zoo, zoo ,zoo. You can't come too, too ,too.

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Shock horror, we're back in the car!! Beware all drivers in the Bay area.

Two reasons for this;


• A move of hotel from the cheap, generally pleasant but miles out of the way Hilton Mission Valley to bang in town posh Hilton Bayfront
• A trip to the famous San Diego Zoo














First up was the need to refill petrol or get some "gas" as these locals call it. Easy you'd think, so as there was a gas station near the hotel we went there, pulled up next to the pump, hopped out and undid the cap (on the correct side), took the petrol gun out of the holster, and waited, pulled the trigger, nothing. Pressed a start button against the unleaded premium (the only gun, despite it quoting three other choices on the pump) grrr - getting angry now, so go in shop and nobody around, then some bloke appears and goes behind the counter. Aha, maybe he's arming the pump, like I had to all those years ago working in a petrol station, perhaps this hick part of town is still living in the eighties, so I head outside to try again. Same procedure and no joy, but this time I hear the dulcet tones of the tannoy "sir on pump 7, please come inside to receive assistance", cue boy and wife laughing at me for being a complete spaz. Chat with bloke provides some information not available it would appear outside, in that between the pumps is an ATM and a pay at pump service, and apparently my pump was a pay at pump (no discernible clues have yet to be realised). He then proceeds to tell me my card wouldn't have worked anyway!!! SO I give him my credit card, and he asks how much I want, and I reply "don't know mate, want to fill it up but have no idea how much that might be". This appears to throw him for a moment, but after much considered thought he then asks "how much gas do you want?". Sorry I say you must have misheard me, $50 dollars please. He keeps my card, I sidle on out to the pump, whack $50 dollars worth in without any issue whatsoever for now the pump works like a dream, come back and sign (retrieve card), thank him for his help and bid him good day - 20+ minutes lost to the transient things in life.

So to our move reasons, we'll come back to the hotel move in tomorrows blog, but we left our luggage at the new place as we were too early to check in, and decided the time was rife for some animal action, especially having been surrounded by homo sapiens for so long.

San Diego Zoo is excellent, well thought out and worth the entrance fee. We started by getting a tourguide bus ride in order to get our bearings (clearly not an issue for myself as of course being a bloke I have the inbuilt man compass that never lets us down), and also to see where the best parts were.

The speciality (god I'm making it sound like a restaurant), is the pandas, and they were very cool plus they nail vast quantities of bamboo, must be some pent up frustration they have, already the photo suggests a readiness to loaf around.

A great day out, thoroughly recommended, but please make sure you have plenty of gas. Tomorrow we take on Sea World hoping to first have had a hearty breakfast, but will the Hilton Bayfront deliver I wonder......

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