It was another hot day in San Diego. Fortunately, the Zoo is in shady Balboa Park. First off, I have to say I found the most awesome parking space. (But that's only because I'm trying to annoy Sweetie:)) First off we took the Skyfari cable ride to the far end of the park. We started with some gazelle-like things (we started calling them either "bags of meat" or "meat on a stick" depending on the size and shape of the fauna). We saw some of the same stuff we saw at the Wild Animal Park (WAP), naturally, since the animals bred at the WAP feed into the zoo. They also have the polar bears out there. They were snacking. One was chewing on what looked like a cow's thigh bone. Another was crunching on carrots. (An odd juxtaposition.) We wandered down through the Lost Forest section seeing otters, monkeys, tigers, a hippo, tapirs, lots of birds, and many other critters, fuzzy and otherwise. Sweetie really enjoyed seeing the harpy eagle. About the time we returned to the front of the park, Thing 2 was having a bit of a meltdown, so we thought it would be a good time to stop for lunch.
Afterward, we headed over to the Discovery Outpost, which is set up for the smaller zoo patrons. Thing 2 really liked the petting zoo. We also had a great time in the insect house. The naked mole rats were a bit of a disappointment, but the red panda was pretty cool. We then visited the Reptile House. This was a big hit with the Things. The anaconda and the Burmese python were both huge and enthralling. Their Burmese was butter yellow because of a color mutation. They also had rattle snakes and emerald tree boas and a great lizard pit with lots of cool lizards head-bobbing and eating crickets. We saw the Galapagos tortoises and the gharial, and a peacock showed up.
Getting tired from all the walking, we decided to take the bus tour. I guess the zoo is really big, because we drove around for about 40 minutes and didn't ever achieve a full stop until the end. It was sort of like the tour in Jurassic Park, in that we'd pull up to an exhibit, the critter wouldn't be in evidence, and we'd move on. Rather anemic. The only good thing was that we were sitting on the right side of the bus, which turned out to be the correct side of the bus because most of the exhibits we drove by were on that side.
One nice thing about the bus tour was that we could map out what else we wanted to see before we left. When we returned, we once again took the cable car to the far side of the park and this time wandered the other direction toward Elephant Odyssey. This first took us past the takins (odd hooved creatures from Asia), then to the elephants, where there was also a dung beetle exhibit, and then down to the camels and condors.
At the bottom of that section was a meerkat exhibit. This troop had four babies, who were absolutely adorable. We went up Big Cat Trail and saw the striped and spotted hyenas, the singing dogs, a black jaguar, and the legs of a cougar (sticking out of his/her cave). Then we took the Sun Bear Trail back to the park entrance. The Sun Bears were very cute - little black bears, one of which was rolling around in a blanket. As we were leaving the park, some of the evening entertainment showed up. A 'living vine' (read "woman on stilts in a viney costume"). This totally freaked out Thing 2. After a little shopping, it was back to the hotel for a swim.
So that wraps up our major parks for this vacation. Tomorrow we return to Balboa Park to sample what else there is to offer.
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