San Diego, California: A very long day, and the kids have finally finished their "summer school" homework and reading and are getting into bed at 9:30p... and Lucy was pooped-on by a seagull, so there was some laundry to attend to... so I will just post a lot of photos with captions. Even though we went to a zoo and saw hundreds of animals, reptiles, fish, birds... I mostly snapped photos of the grandkids. Mammals, after all. The weather did not cooperate, hovering around 68 degrees all day and cloudy until 5p, when the sun finally broke through as we were leaving the zoo grounds. Lucy was our guide. She had a map of the property and planned our route to see every "continent" and feature of the zoo. Our daily ticket included admission, a ride on the gondola and a ride on the double-decker bus that gives a good over-view of the zoo and offers different vistas (we sat on the upper deck) than a visitor can see from the walkways. The zoo was not terribly crowded today, which made for a very lovely visit. The last time we visited this zoo was 2017.
We arrived to the gorilla exhibit just as their keepers had put out fresh foods, so the beasts were very busy feeding and searching-out their meal.
By noon, we had seen much of the zoo and decided to find some food for ourselves. Zoo food has moved far beyond hot dogs and chicken fingers (though of course, Lucy had chicken fingers):
Leo had his iTouch along and captured this amazing photo of his sister kissing a Mexican walking fish (behind glass), aka Axolotl.
Caption this! Lucy's first kiss!
The San Diego Zoo has so many places to rest, so many statues to climb/pose on, so many restaurants, shops, snack places, play structures of kids, and even a water/splash/spray area. Everything is so well maintained, and the landscape is so mature and lush. Jungle-like. We saw banana trees, coffee trees, guava, and all sort of flowering plants. Amazing gardens throughout. We even found wild strawberries.
Time for an ice cream break:
Lucy has a pen-pal/friend in New York. She wanted to pose on this lion for Sofia, and then she wanted to buy two identical stuffed koalas, one for Lucy and one for Sofia. She paid for the stuffies with her own money. When we parked in the zoo lot this morning, we parked in the KOALA 2 zone and told Lucile she was responsible for remembering where we were parked. Imagine the irony when we returned to our car with two koalas.
But, wait, there's more! We returned to our hotel to visit the two resident blind rescue seals that live in a lovely pond on-site. The seals are watched over by two heron... I know the bird on the left is a Night Heron. Anyone know about the bird on the right?
There was a shuffleboard tournament. Not sure who won, but I think team Leo+Bubbe took the prize. We walked down to the pretty sleazy Mission Bay boardwalk for a kinda bad pizza, took a stroll along the sea, then returned for last-minute workbook work and reading.
More fun planned for tomorrow! Until my next update, I remain, your 18,000 steps today correspondent.
Ahh, your pictures and stories of the San Diego Zoo give
me the desire for a return visit. Been too long.
It has to be one of the best zoos.
Your making wonderful memories!!