Day 371 (Gem Mining)

Last day of the road trip, which also happens to be my birthday! My family and I went to a tourmaline mine in Pala, CA to try to find some precious gems.

Here's my loot! The people there told me that the big pink one in the upper right is worth $40.00 to $50.00!

PICTURE OF tHE DAY: My dad found a really nice one, too! His is on the left. Raw like this, we were told it's worth about $100.00. If he gets it cut right, it could be worth over $700.00!!! Holy Moly!!!

Day 370 (San Diego Zoo)

It was so great hanging out with my family today; I always have so much fun with them. As planned, we went to the San Diego Zoo today. What was unplanned was the long walk to get there. My mom and I had explored the area around the zoo yesterday, and we assumed that it was somewhere nearby, so we just drove to the same parking lot that we went to yesterday. It wasn't all that far, but the zoo was at the opposite end of the complex, almost a mile away, with its own parking lot. We didn't figure this out until we were at the halfway point, so we ended up walking there. We also ended up eating way too much food today, so it was probably a good thing we had to walk so much. Here are the pictures I took on our way there.

From left to right: my dad, my nephew Raj, my brother James, my nephew Kai and my brother Brian.

And of course, pictures of the animals:

From left to right: my dad, my mom, my brother James, my sister Dianne, my newphew Kai.

PICTURE OF THE DAY: This is a happy hippo.