Non-vacation in San Diego

Context: This post is about a trip to San Diego.

As we prepared to go to San Diego to visit our dying uncle, our mother repeated her mantra: "This isn't a vacation!"

But the two teenage boys she was dragging along didn't like that mantra, so she added another mantra at the end: "But we will go to the San Diego Zoo!"

The San Diego Zoo is a big deal (which I learned many years ago from reading one of the Baby-Sitters Club specials. When they all go on a cross-country road trip, Andrew Brewster chooses the San Diego Zoo as his special destination because he wants to see a baby panda. So I knew that San Diego has a zoo, and the zoo has pandas). So I guess my mom thought that would be exciting. Baby Brother certainly thought it sounded exciting. He began to research the zoo and make a plan so that we could see the whole zoo in the morning before visiting my uncle in the afternoon.

Me, I'm no Andrew Brewster. I don't really like zoos. Also, in the short space of a year and a half, this was my third "non-vacation" with my parents. I love my parents, but since I've been out of the house for so long, being with them 24/7 on these non-vacations and having them dictate when I wake up and what I eat and where I go is a trial of my patience. So I had my own mantra for the trip, which I used to channel my inner Mindy whenever Mom told me to do something.

AWKWARD MORMON GIRL: Okay, lady!

In short, I went to the zoo and tried not to ruin it for Baby Brother by being grouchy.

As far as zoos go, the San Diego Zoo was nice. There was pretty foliage everywhere and all kinds of animals. There was a bus and a sky tram. There were flamingos and koalas. There were penguins, which did excite me because I love penguins. Also pandas! Giant pandas. Which I say not because the pandas were of abnormal size but because that's their proper name.

Fun fact: Did you know that all the giant pandas in the world belong to China? (Except for a few that belong to Taiwan.) If you want to borrow a giant panda for your zoo, you must pay a bazillion dollars to China. Something like that.

At the tail end of the panda exhibit was a photographer. He instructed us to hold our arms in a cradling position.

"We're going to Photoshop baby pandas into your arms," he said.

Sure enough, at the photo kiosk, for the bargain price of $20+, we could purchase a beautifully Photoshopped yet totally unnecessary photo of ourselves cuddling baby pandas!

And Mom "This Isn't a Vacation" McMommerson actually bought it. I have a print of it on my fridge right now. Obviously it's not a souvenir since it wasn't a vacation. It's a...keepsake. And in that keepsake, it really does look like I'm cuddling a baby panda.

I love it. So maybe there's some Andrew Brewster in me after all.