We made it!  And we didn't Bust! Saturday, Oct. 11: We Left El Centro about 10:00 AM and headed toward San Diego to go to the Safari Park this afternoon.  El Centro was slightly below sea level.  On the drive our elevation was fluctuating up and down and hit as high as 4187 feet.  When we arrived at the Safari Park (owned and operated by the Zoo) it was really crowded because it was a Saturday in October, and children get in free in October.  We purchased two tickets for both the Park and the Zoo for $162. Cheetahs & Gorillas: 1 min, 45 secs One of the reasons I (John) wanted to do this trip was to see the San Diego Zoo and compare it with the St. Louis Zoo.  They both claim to be the countries best.  I found them both to be so good that I wouldn't say one was better than the other.  San Diego has two advantages over St. Louis, space (lots of it) and Climate.  The warm weather animals can stay outside during the winter months.  In St. Louis they were putting the last of the animals that had to be sheltered for the winter into their shelters.  I think St. Louis had a few more exotic animals like aardvarks, mongoose, etc.  St. Louis also had a much better exhibit of reptiles and insects, both of which bored Sandra as I was reading all the information concerning them.  The other thing St. Louis did better than San Diego is their natural  habitat area which are long width-wise and not too deep which kept the animals closer to the viewing areas.  I was not disappointed at either Zoo.  We ate at the Cheesecake Factory after the Safari park and went to our motel.  The pecan pumpkin cheesecake (a specialty for October) was delicious.  Sunday, October 12: This morning we went to the USS Midway Mueseum. We had a wonderful tour by a docent, John Gerogedes, his friends call him Johnny G.  He is a good friend of Floyd's. (See Granbury, Texas, where we visited Floyd). They were both pilots and had shared an apartment years ago.   The Midway is an aircraft carrier that was the largest ship in the world for 10 years, 1945 to 1955.  In 1975 it led the evacuation of Saigon rescuing 3,073 refugees in two days.  In 1991 it was the flagship of the Persian Gulf air operation in Desert Storm. It had a crew of 4,500 (most of the enlisted slept in quarters like the one pictured.  I think uniforms were in the lockers and personal belongings in the limited space below the mattress.  The officers had a little more space, about three of the  higher ranking officers and the chaplain had individual quarters.  We took lots of pictures on the midway, it was a little city inside a ship, an emergency room, critical care room, and I think I remember Johnny G saying there were four galleys.  They served meals 23 hours a day.  The other hour was reserved for cleaning.  They had four galleys so that if any illness was spread it might be restricted to just those who ate in one galley.  They cooked and served 13,500 meals a day.  Watch the video, it gives you just an idea of how large this ship is. USS Midway  2.25 min. We had lunch on the ship and then went to the Birch Aquarium. We saw a really big Octopus, the picture doesn't do it justice. larger seahorses than at the N. C. Aquarium, Nautilus, (the nautilus is a neat animal, as it grows it seals off the part of the shell it is vacating and this causes it to be a "chambered" shell.  The vacated chambers are filled with gas, which makes this shelled animal able to float and maneuver.  It is related to the Octopus and Squid, all are mollusks whose single foot has adapted into tentacles.  Rev. Barford, the minister who preceded me gave nautilus shells as graduation gifts, using the symbol of the chambers as representing the stages of life, graduation being the completion of a "chamber" in our lives.   Late in my career I picked up the practice. There were two species of of Sea Dragon, Woody sea dragons and Leafy sea dragons.  These are really sea horses with unusual appendages.  You can see them in the video: Sea Dragons, 52 sec. Then we went to Old Town and ate at the Cafe Coyote. We walked around Old Town and saw where the first public school of San Diego was located.  Old Town is where San Diego began and is a tourist attraction now. Monday, Oct. 13: Today we went to the San Diego Zoo.  We got there when it opened at 9:00 AM and left about 3:30 PM.  We rode the Kangaroo Express a couple of times and the skyfari once which is similar to a ski lift over the whole park. We started with the Koalas, then saw the Pandas, 13 sec. and the polar bears, 36 sec. Walked through the fern canyon trail which was like a rain forest area, Saw the orangutans, 36 secs.   Watched an elephant snap a log like it was a twig! 23 secs. and Kangaroos, 42 secs.   Huge Tortoise & friend, 33 sec. Rambunctious Otter, 36 secs                                              We didn't have stills of the last three, they're the etc. group.  I tried not to duplicate                                              videos of animals from both zoos, we did with the elephants, though, St. Louis had                                              baby elephants. There  was house for bats, fruit bats in particular.  They weren't moving at all so I didn't take movies of them.  These are sleeping, it was after all, daylight. This one was apparently pulling an all-dayer. These birds weren't moving either, they are California condors, which were close to extinction at one time but I understand they are making a comeback. That's the end of our Westward movement, we begin our journey home but it's not without excitement. Next Stop Death Valley!