After our time in the Yosemite National Park we drove to Fremont. We had booked a one night stay there so we could see Phil Wickham & Brandon Lake at their Summer Worship Night in Oakland. And since the hotels in Oakland seemed a bit on the sketchy side we opted for Fremont. It was amazing to see those two artists live and it just fit perfectly with our travel plans.
On our way south we stopped by the Monterey Bay Aquarium. It is, in our opinion, one of the best aquariums there is. Mike and I had already been there once, ten years ago. Since we liked it so much last time we wanted to show it to our kids. You can see otters and sea lions in their natural habitat and you can watch the feeding of their open ocean exhibit – a huge salt water tank with Dolphin fish, Yellowfin Tuna and Hammerhead sharks. They also have touch pools with stingrays, which was a lot of fun for us. The kids liked it very much there.
After the aquarium we continued south to Atascadero. I (Diana) have relatives there that I had never met before. So it was more than high time to visit and get to know them. On Sunday morning we visited their church, the ABC (Atascadero Bible Church). Afterwards we spent a few hours at the beach and even got to surf a little bit. The water was quite chilly (about 55°F), something we had not expected. The kids still had fun in the water and on the beach, Mike even saw a sea lion while waiting for waves. At night we also got invited to a delicious dinner. Overall we had an amazing day and we hope that we can see them again soon. We already miss them.
On Monday we drove towards Los Angeles, our next stop in the journey down the coast of California. Our hotel was right next to the Hollywood Boulevard, as we had planned to visit the Universal Studios on Tuesday.
After a very brief breakfast we booked an Uber (first time for us) and started our tour of the Universal Studios. As we had gotten early access tickets we had almost no wait times for the first few rides. But even during the day we never waited longer than 30 min for a ride. The Jurassic World ride was easily our favorite. We even rode it two times. The second time we got first row seats – and got super wet. Still worth it. We had so much fun, the kids couldn’t even decided which ride they liked best.
Since we’re not big fans of Los Angeles in general we were already on the move again today, this time to our final destination for this vacation: San Diego.
