San Diego Zoo (January 2, 2013)

Wednesday, January 2, 2013

The San Diego Zoo is a special place.  It's a massive place too.  We spent the entire day there on January 2nd, but we could have easily spent days longer.  It is truly that incredible.

Thanks to Laura, we were able to get one free admission and one discounted admission.  We really appreciated it.

You can scout out the map online before you go.  It's a wonderful place with pandas, polar bears, koalas, monkeys, giraffes, rhinos, hippos, and more animals galore.  I love how they mixed symbiotic animals in enclosures too.

Before the gates opened, we got a glimpse at a really cool stork.

When the stork flew off, the park was open.  We hightailed it to go see the polar bears getting a tad bit distracted along the way.

Look at those wrinkles!  I love my new zoom lens!

Warthogs are nasty.

Vultures are nasty too.

Ugh - he has a rat.

But the zebras were cute.

These adorable guys were housed with the zebras.

After the polar bears, we headed to the pandas.

Hey look - it's Terri.

When traversing through the park, they have a great uphill transport system.  We used it several times.

Kris enjoys the uphill transportation at the San Diego Zoo.

 Then we were off to see some marsupials.  I adore marsupials!!!

Wallaby

Koala

More koalas are coming to the San Diego Zoo soon.

 This guy had a massive zoom lens on his camera.  I'm jealous!

We spent a lot of time watching the elephants before heading over to see some cute fuzzy creatures.

Kris's other personality - Harold the Over Hunting Theorist

I am a huge fan of the San Diego Zoo.  They have it together.  They have large, rotating exhibits and intermingle animal species like you may see them in nature.  Most of the animals seem happy.

But then we got to this one exhibit that had a New Guinea Singing Dog...and it just about broke my heart.  There is good reason this critter is on exhibit.  They are an endangered animal.  They aren't domesticated.  They are hunters.  But they look just like a puppy, and this guy was whining for the Goldfish that the kid next to me was eating.  It just made me a bit sad.

New Guinea Singing Dog staring at a kid in the zoo with some Goldfish

Next up were the giraffes, where we spent an abundance of time.  We just couldn't help it.  The little was was playing water games.  It was too funny!

I was also rather fascinated with the monkeys.

We saw a rhino pee today.  When I say it's like a fire hydrant, I mean it.  Run away!

Some animals are adorable.  Some are camels...

In addition to other photographers at the park, I saw a sketching artist.

Kris, naturally, was into the insects and reptiles, so these photos are his handiwork.

Dragon foot

This sucker is real!

 They had some funny Christmas displays in the zoo.

This person desperately wanted to become part of the display.

I'm pretty sure this ape thought he was looking at a people display.

Hippo

Hippo

Wise old fellow

Doc Terry

Peacock on the roof

Bell concert

We stayed until closing and then went to tour Laura's house and meet her cousin, Nicole. We surprised them with some Giant New York Pizza.

Truly giant pizza from Giant New York Pizza

Quite a day!