San Diego, California: We had a fairly peaceful sleep, considering lions roared outside our tent all night. Even so, I did not welcome the "Good Morning Campers. This is your first wake-up call. Luggage must be left outside your tent by seven o'clock" greeting from a roaming camp host at 6:15a. His greeting did wake me and, luckily, I checked my phone to find April the Giraffe finally giving birth. Two little giraffe feet had made an appearance. I took my phone over to Lisa's tent to show her and help her pack and dress the kids. While in Lisa's tent, I watched April the Giraffe give birth so am afraid I wasn't much help to Lisa at all. Probably is why she said, "Thanks for all the help, Mom" when I left the tent to watch the elephants just outside our tent with Leo? My Mom loved giraffes, so how appropriate that April gave birth on my Mom's birthday!
It's a boy - 5'9", 130 pounds. You can view the entire birth via a video on the Animal Adventure Park Facebook page. A video of the birth was posted April 15th at 6:25a. Watch the entire thing, or speed up to about the 25 minute mark for the actual birth. We did manage to get ourselves dressed and packed and over to the dining area for breakfast - pancakes, scrambled eggs, sausage (pork or veggie), hash browns, fruit, juice, coffee and cocoa - then we once again gathered with our assigned group for a private tour of the Butterfly Jungle exhibit (March 11-April 23) before the Safari Park opened for the day.Lucy especially enjoyed watching the butterflies and tried to find each species on a colorful paper flyer given to us for species identification.
Next our group had a private tour of the tiger exhibit at the Tiger Trail in the San Diego Zoo Safari Park.
It was another amazing experience to be so close to gorgeous Sumatran Tigers from Indonesia. The tigers (we saw three) were very active - running around and chasing each other and pouncing on each other in playful fun.
After these two private walk-throughs, it was time to retrieve our luggage from the staging area in the zoo parking lot. We placed our belongings in our cars and returned to the zoo - the Roar & Snore includes admission to the Safari Park the day after the sleep-over. Dave and I did not stay long, but Lisa stayed at the park for several hours with the kids.
These Grandparents were beat, so headed over the mountains to our lovely campsite in Indio. We had a very happy surprise waiting for us:
The first tomatoes of the season harvested from our little flower pot!
Until my next update, I remain, your Sore & Snoring correspondent.