Santa Barbara Zoo

Chris and I went to the Santa Barbara Zoo on Saturday. The weather was a little chilly and overcast, but the trip was still great. One of the star attractions of the zoo is Gemina, the crooked-necked giraffe. Her neck is, indeed, crooked. It looks like it would be painful, but apparently it isn't. She eats fine and has even had a healthy baby. The zoo is not a huge zoo like the San Diego Zoo, but it is decent sized. We saw everything from tarantulas to lions. The reptile room was full of lizards, snakes, and even some insects and spiders. It was full of creepy-crawlies. They had a room full of turtles and fish, too, and a happily-swimming sea lion. They also have Asian elephants, lemurs, capybaras, foxes, monkeys, gorillas, lions, and a lot of birds. They have several aviaries, in fact. You can feed the giraffes and the lorakeets, and there is a petting zoo for the kids. The gorillas were being ornery. Apparently, they don't like each other much. In their enclosure, there are only the two males. Maybe they don't like sharing their territory. Well one of them did something pretty nasty. He sat down, and went poop and then ate it. I heard a kid exclaim, "ewwww. Why did he have to eat his poop?" That was sooooooo funny. Even though it was indeed pretty nasty, it was still funny all the same. The leopards were also putting on a show...they were in an amorous mood, if you know what I mean. After they were done, the female chased the male away, fangs bared and growling. Poor guy. He just wanted some lovin'.

After the zoo, we drove to Santa Barbara Mission and looked around a little, and then Chris showed me around Santa Barbara a little. On Sunday, we went to Solvang, which is a little Danish-style town, full of bakeries, gift shops, galleries, and restaurants. It is very touristy. I picked up a few postcards and some candy there. We stopped in Lompoc for coffee and hot cocoa at a little bookstore/coffee shop, and there was a wedding reception going on in there and a guy playing blues music. So we went in and had a drink and talked. It was a really nice weekend. I had so much fun!