Tijuana/San Diego - Day 7

We got up at 6:30am to try and be on the road at 7:00am. That didn't work, but we did leave the house around 7:30am, on our way to Legoland in California. We were early enough that we ran into rush hour traffic in Tijuana, and the line at the border was longer than the last time we crossed. It did move quickly, though, and after about an hour we were at the front of the line. The border guard took more time than the last guy, as he opened all the doors, checked our faces against our passports and asked a bunch of questions about where we were going and what we were bringing back from Mexico. All the questions turned out to be a good thing, as he let us through without a secondary search, unlike the first time we went through the border.

Unfortunately, as soon as we left the border area and entered the highway, Colette tried to get everyone's attention, as she realized we only had 7 passports. A quick check showed that Sandra's was missing, so we took the first exit and drove through the border town to the pedestrian border crossing. There weren't any obvious parking spots, so we let Sandra and Colette out, while Rick found a parking spot in a very small Jack in the Box parking lot. It did not take very long and they were back with the missing passport.

With that problem out of the way, we were on our way to Legoland, which is a little bit north of San Diego. We arrived around 11:00am, so decided to go to Taco Bell for an early lunch. We may as well have been in Mexico, as no one in the restaurant spoke English. The lady who was taking my order got it wrong twice and I ended up going through the line a second time in order to get everything I wanted. Our next stop was Legoland.

The first thing we saw in the park was a life size Darth Vader and R2-D2, made out of Lego, so I had my picture taken with them. We then went on a safari ride, where you sat in a small jeep that went around a track. Arranged around the track were large animals made out of Lego. The next ride was fairly similar, just with the jeeps replaced by boats and the animals replaced by fairy tale people and creatures. After that was the first store, which contained a lot of Star Wars Lego, so Xander and I toured it. I bought Xander a shirt with a Lego Darth Vader on it that says "The Force is strong in this one", and I bought myself a keychain with a Lego Darth Vader on the end.

The rest of the day was a filled with various rides, either with the kids (if they were tall enough) or Rick and Colette would go on their own and leave the kids with us. Frankly, I was expecting more than just a theme park with a few Lego statues scattered around, but I guess it is the rides that keeps normal people interested. In the castle area, which had no kid rides, I bought a chess set made up of knight and skeleton mini-figures and a Lego photo frame. While Legoland wasn't what I was expecting, Xander had a great time. He loved all the rides, though he would never admit it. Whenever I asked him if he liked a ride he would say "No. Again?".

Near the end of the day we toured Miniland USA, which is more of what I was expecting. There were miniature versions of Washington D.C., New York, Las Vegas, Southern California, New Orleans, San Francisco and Daytona (the NASCAR racetrack). Xander was enthralled by the moving vehicles and spent a very long time standing in front of the Daytona model, watching the race cars move around the track. I was really impressed with how all the various buildings and landmarks had been recreated in Lego, though I was disappointed with the fact that they had been outside for a long time and were starting to show their age - the bricks were faded and peeling in spots.

With just under 15 minutes before the park closed, I quickly ran over to the shop that sold Lego in bulk ($7.99 per quarter pound) and filled a plastic bag with various bits of Lego from the bins that were there. I wished I had more time to actually browse and think about what pieces I wanted, but the store was closing in five minutes, so I basically just grabbed handfuls of Lego bricks and shoved them in the bag. I left with 4/10ths of a pound of assorted Lego bricks and a book on building Lego models.

We left Legoland, with Evan screaming because he was hungry and headed towards San Diego. As it was 5:30pm, we encountered the famous California freeway traffic - six to eight lanes of stopped cars. We actually were never stopped for very long, but there were parts of the trip where we were not traveling very fast. We finally arrived at our hotel, unpacked everything and ordered a pizza. Rick and Colette stayed for supper and then left around 8:30pm to return to Mexico. We are getting up at 4:30am tomorrow to get to the airport around 5:30am for our flights back home to Regina.