Our Fabulous Vacation in 2012

We had finally made our last payment to Pioneer Credit Counselling.  It had been a long journey that we hadn't asked for, but we were ready to finally go on a vacation.  We figured that we were used to making those payments so we technically had that money to spend on ourselves for a change.  As we sat at the restaurant waiting for our food, the question arose, "Where should we to go?"  There were several ideas thrown out between the two of us.  I got out a notebook and started to record our wish list for the ultimate vacation.  We wanted a place that included interesting places, a zoo, an aquarium, scenic views, and somewhere we hadn't visited before. The list included places like New York City, the Grand Canyon, Paris, Australia, Mexico, Caribbean, any ocean, anywhere with interesting scenery, and anything else that we could think of that night.  It was a great list.

As we let the list sit and think about what we wanted most, even more ideas came to our minds.  I wanted to  go somewhere warm that had a beach to lay on in the bright, warm sunshine, and a zoo/aquarium combination as is the usual when we get out of town. Ryan wanted to go somewhere exciting, interesting, and that didn't include a museum. :)  

Finally, a location that included all of those items came to mind.  San Diego, California!  There was a beach, a zoo, an aquarium, the ocean, scenery, an unvisited location, and Comic Con.  Comic Con hadn't ever been on my list of places to visit, but it was definitely on Ryan's wish list.  Just to clarify, San Diego Comic Con is a yearly international convention that celebrates comic books, comic book art, science fiction, movies, and  television shows as well as those who create these items - actors, writers, artists, producers, etc.  There are about 125,000 people who descend on San Diego for this event.  

I was a little leery of whether I would enjoy that convention, but Ryan wanted to go.  Before he registered online to have the privilege of buying tickets, he asked if I was sure this is where I wanted to go.  I said, "As long as I get to go to the beach, the zoo, and the aquarium, I would be just fine."  The chances of getting tickets to this event were minimal, but we decided to go for it.   

After he registered, they set him a link that was activated for one day that led to the purchase of tickets.  The link went active on a Saturday morning in early March at 9:00 AM Pacific time.  He was online to try to get tickets and beat everyone.  He finally go in the queue at 9:04 and was number 7300 or so in line to purchase tickets.  Tickets got purchased and we were good to go!  They were sold out at 9:32 AM.  The remaining few months were spent booking airline tickets, a hotel, renting a car, purchasing tickets for the zoo, aquarium, and anything else we thought sounded interesting.  We were ready to be on our adventure out west to San Diego, CA.