Saturday, September 10, 2005

San Diego Zoo Trip


On Friday, my mom, my brother and I went to LA, but somewhere along the way, my brother decided he wanted to go to the San Diego Zoo, so we went. I love zoos! They are so much fun. The San Diego Zoo is huge. You need to go early to be able to see everything in one day. We didn't get there til after 1 pm, and it closed at 6, so we only had a few hours. Luckily, they have buses and an Aerial Tram to take you from place to place. But even with these forms of transportation available, you better bring your walking shoes. There are a lot of hills and steps to climb. Oh, and bring a camera. There are tons of photo opportunities.

There are a lot of animals to see. From the African Elephant to the little geckos...from the meat eating lions to the cute little meerkats. There are so many things to see. I think my favorites are the gorillas. They were putting on a show, especially one in particular. He was running to and fro along the glass walls and every once in a while, he would throw himself against the wall, as if to say, "Back off. This is MY home." The orangutans were also in a playful mood. They share their habitat with the siamangs, which are smaller, black apes, looking more like monkeys than apes. They would run up the ropes and swing on them, and then the orangutans would come around and pull them off and climb up the ropes themselves. They seemed to enjoy playing with each other, and they get along well.

I would like to go to the zoo again someday when I have more time to look around. My brother likes the gorillas and polar bears the best, so we spent a lot of time at those places, but he did pay for our tickets and drove us down there, so I am not complaining. We all had a great time.

Link: San Diego Zoo

A postcard from the San Diego Zoo

San Diego, CA

an overhead view of the zoo

The San Diego Zoo's "Lifeguard"

The Gorillas werebusy showing off and asserting their authority - this one would run around and bang into the wall now and then, and then look at us as if to say "Respect my authority!"

This Gorilla was keeping an eye on us

The Giant Panda was busy eating lunch

This Orangutan made herself a hat

The Orangutans were playing around

Mama Masai Giraffe....

...Papa....

....and baby makes 3

The Jaguar - he sure interested in something - he didn't take his eyes off of whatever he was looking at

The Bornean Bearded Pigs - looks like he needs a shave

The Dik-Dik - funny name, but so cute!

The African Elephants...they were huge!

Spanky, the Alaskan Brown Bear was taking a swim

The African Wild Hunting Dogs were busy playing around

This Western Red Flanked Duiker apparently found me interesting to look at, too

The Polar Bear was taking it easy

The Rhino was taking a bath

Ankole cattle - look at the size of those horns!

The Peccary was taking a nap

This Takin was showing us what he thought of us

Meerkats - they are so cute - the one in the middle is the baby

I think these zebras were trying to tell us something

The Aerial Tram - it takes you from one end of the zoo to the other