Daily Archives: January 29, 2014

January 29, 2014 San Diego, California Part 2

A visit to San Diego is not complete without a visit to the world famous San Diego Zoo. 45-IMG_20140129_094416 46-IMG_20140130_092553 The zoo is huge and we began the day by taking a tour of the zoo on a double decker bus which helped us get an idea of the layout of the zoo so we could better plan our day. 42-P1030981 The zoo is hilly in many places and they provide express buses that run throughout the park so you can hop on and off at various stops in the zoo.  It sure was nice to have the buses since they saved us many steps and hills.

First stop was Lost Forest with flamingoes, 01-P1030868monkeys, apes and hippos.  The monkeys kept us entertained as they picked each others hair and played with one another. 09-P1030870 10-P1030874 The apes played hide and seek with their blankets. 11-P1030876 12-P1030884 The hippos were underwater and came up for air.  We were amazed at their enormous size. 23-P1030921 24-P1030922

Africa Rocks had warthogs, lions which we unfortunately did not get a good picture of because they were sleeping when we saw them, leopards 30-P1030948 and tigers. 13-P1030888

Panda Canyon showcased panda bears. 19-P1030914 20-P1030917 18-P1030911 21-P1030918

Outback was home to koalas which were adorable, 17-P1030904 16-P1030902 15-P1030899 wombats, wallabies, kookaburros and kangaroos. 40-P1030974 41-P1030977

Urban Jungle had giraffes 08-P1030962 07-P1030866zebras 39-P1030973 rhinos which were probably one of the ugliest animals in the zoo and who decided to relieve herself as we took her picture, 37-P1030969 38-P1030972 and cheetahs.

We were fascinated by the camels 35-P1030957 36-P1030960 31-P1030953

Elephant Odyssey showed us huge elephants. 06-P1030951 05-P1030952 The zoo is very clean and the animals all looked very well taken care of.  We were told that the elephants were given manicures to prevent foot problems.

One of the most entertaining animals at the zoo were the polar bears who did a backstroke for us in their pool.  04-P1030855 03-P1030854


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Near the polar bears we also found reindeer who didn’t look at all like Rudolph!  28-P103094129-P1030942We grabbed a quick lunch at one of the many restaurants in the park and had some friends join us.  14-P1030891

We saw several different birds at the zoo including the very unattractive California condor33-P1030955 34-P1030956 and a sea eagle. 25-P1030933 26-P1030934

Bill got to sit in a helicopter 27-P1030940and had his picture taken with a few of his friends. 22-P1030907 43-P1030982 44-P1030983 After spending the entire day at the zoo we probably only saw about 60% of what was there.  But we both agreed it had been a full day and I went home with only one wild thing. 47-20140129_160937