It was another early morning since we wanted to be at the park for sunrise. We decided to go to the park before breakfast because today we were going to split up: Jeff wanted to see the Cholla cactuses again, while I wanted a different perspective from Keys View. The plan was that he would drop me off at Keys View while it was still mostly dark, and he would drive the forty minutes to the cactus garden in time for the sunrise. I wore two hoodies with both hoods up, a windbreaker, and gloves, but still froze my bootie off at that altitude. I was also feeling a bit discouraged because there was so much fog, I didn’t think I would get any good pictures. However, as the day got a little lighter, I realized the fog was something interesting I could work with.

After the sun rose and burned off some of the fog, I got some really nice views of the mountains to the west and the Coachella Valley below. Looking around the area where I was standing, I found some interesting desert flora with morning dew clinging to it. The sun dried all of the moisture up like some thirsty desert creature within twenty minutes of my first noticing it.

I waited another hour for Jeff to finish his pictures of the cactuses and to come pick me up, and the parking lot where I was began filling up pretty quickly. I’ve always gotten uncomfortable when people are around, even before these strange times, and I just stared off into the distant mountains hoping no one would talk to me or comment on the weird fat lady sitting by herself on the wall. When Jeff finally arrived, I was glad to get in the car. It was a good couple of hours before I felt warm again.

After eating breakfast and packing up, we headed toward the Santa Rosa and San Jacinto Mountains National Monument on our way to San Diego. We passed by the largest wind farm we’d ever seen and through some pretty hoity-toity civilization with streets named after television and movie stars in Palm Springs and Desert Palms. The fake grass gave way to rocky brush rather abruptly, and we came to the visitor center only to find it closed. Moving on through the mountains, I didn’t really see much difference between them and other rocky areas we had been throughout our trip, except this area was less pretty. We stopped for about thirty seconds at a viewpoint to get a picture of the valley, but moved on from the crazy beautiful people posing on top of the barrier wall to get some pretty narcissistic selfies.

I honestly felt like things were prettier on the other side of the mountain range in the San Bernardino National Forest that we happened to pass through, even though we could see large swaths of fire damage. It was very interesting to see how a mountain range can separate a land of plastic from a land of agriculture, as the soil on this side transitioned to land suitable for crops and cattle.

We stopped for lunch for our first Wetzel’s Pretzels hot dog and then arrived at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park, where the parking lot was scarily full. However, the zoo itself is so massive, we were able to keep pretty good distance from everybody else. There weren’t a lot of people in line, but it seemed like none of them knew what they wanted from all the attraction packages, and we waited for so long that Jeff started to get a little miffed. By the time we got to the window, he very clearly stated that we wanted two adult 1-day passes, and that was all. I thought it was kind of funny how the guy at the ticket counter smiled a little because here, finally, he was dealing with a quick, simple transaction.

I didn’t realize how huge this zoo was going to be. We didn’t get the map that a lot of other people were consulting and just kind of had to wing it. I found the signage confusing, and I’m sure we missed some things as we went because of it. Once we sort of got our bearings, we realized there was no way we were going to see everything. The zoo has exhibits for Africa, Asia, and Australia, but we barely made it just through Africa.

There are so many animals, a two-day pass would be worth paying if we’d had more time. We were able to stay long enough to see the Holiday light shows, which were really well done and didn’t seem to bother the animals, as most of them seemed to be roosting and settling in for their night.

When we finally found our way out of the park, we drove to Ocean Beach to try a “Triple D” place, Hodad’s. It seemed like a sketchy part of town, as we were eating in an alley, but I think that was just because we aren’t familiar with surfer culture. Everything was, of course, overpriced, but we split a chocolate milkshake that was nice and thick, and the cheeseburgers were really, really good, with a patty of bacon covering the entire burger.

After supper, I was so glad to get to the hotel, where I determined not to even bother trying to stay up for the new year. The good thing was we could sleep in the next day before grabbing a pizza for lunch and then heading to the airport for our flight home.