Into the Wild . . .

I hope everyone had as lovely a holiday weekend as I did! My sister came to visit, and we went to the San Diego Zoo on Saturday!

The Zoo is huge and the landscaping is beautiful. We did feel a little bit herded at times; there are specific trails and routes, and once on them, you feel like it's a little hard to get off of them and go somewhere else. But, we did get the chance to see a lot of the zoo; we were there for over four hours!

An adolescent giraffe. It was pretty amazing seeing the giraffes up close. At one point the large male walked all the way up to the edge of the moat, as though posing for us, and you could truly get a sense of how tall they really are!

I got to see several animals I've never really seen before, like koalas, and of course pandas. These Greater Rhinos were bigger than any I have seen previously.

The ever-present wandering peacocks.

I'm pretty sure this mountain lion wanted to eat me. It stood as close to the fence as possible, tensed and watching all of us below. It was pretty unnerving, and I was glad when we moved on.

The pandas were funny to watch; they seemed a little like blase celebrities, sitting, eating, and posing for all of us. Very cute, of course, but the whole area felt a little too staged for my taste. Still, it was cool to get to see them.

It was a fantastic time overall, and it'll be a while before I make the two-hour drive again! I'm glad I got to enjoy it with Tab, and I hope you all had as much fun with your holiday as I did;)

Brookfield Zoo: 5/10/09

We went to Brookfield Zoo yesterday, and it was, as always, a lovely time. We did get a couple of extra-special experiences, however!
One of the first places we stopped was the Fragile Kingdom, which houses the big cats. They were sleeping or absent, for the most part, and disappointed, we moved on. But, at the end of the day we headed back once more, and were rewarded for our diligence.
The male lion was playing with a plastic innertube when we arrived, and had it stuck on his head. Not exactly majestic, I know;) He dropped it then, and the lioness trotted over and took it, bringing it across the enclosure to play with it herself. He came over then and played with it too, and the crowd gathered, laughed and watched these huge animals behaving a little bit like house cats. Then came the real treat: the lion got up and went back to lay on an outcropping of rock, and he let forth a series of loud and impressive roars, the last of which I caught on camera. You've never heard a crowd go quiet so fast. Applause broke out then; we were all awestruck and amazed. In case we had been thinking of that lion as cute and cuddly, he remided us all who is truly king of the jungle.

"Dinosaurs Alive!" is the special exhibit this summer, and the life-size, animatronic dinosaurs were fairly cool. Yes, they didn't have much range of motion, but I still thought it was pretty amazing to see these creatures full-size, and with skin on their bones. They even had a few "zoo babies": a baby stegosaurus, and a baby t-rex! I have to say, my favorites were the triceratops and the huge apatosaur at the Roosevelt fountain; you don't really understand the true scale of these things until you're standing right next to them, and considering how quickly you would lose the survival game if it was you against them!

Then, of course, there are the wolves. I always spend the most time in front of the fence at the Regenstein Wolf Woods, watching them. It's no secret that wolves are amoung my favorites in the animal kingdom: their intelligence, complex social structure, and fierce loyalty and sense of family are admirable and fascinating. They were unusually active yesterday too, and we got several pics of them as they passed very near to the fence where we were all watching, rapt.

All in all, the day was pretty incredible. We try to visit Brookfield at least once a year, and it would be hard to top this year's experience!