The San Diego Zoo

After two days of driving we made it to San Diego and it was time for our first outing. The weather was going to be a bit on the cool side so we selected the San Diego Zoo as our first destination. This was their 100 year anniversary and they've developed into one of the largest conservation organizations in the world with an operating budget of over 280 million a year.  The zoo itself grew out exotic animal exhibitions abandoned after the 1915 Panama-California Expo.

We arrived shortly after the zoo opened and one of the first animals on Callie's list was the Koala exhibit. Koala's don't exactly move very much but they sure are cute. They keep the boys and girls in different areas and each one of them has their own artificial tree. The next big destination was the giraffe's. There were at least a half dozen of them and even a couple of babies. The San Diego zoo has an excellent breeding program and the smallest giraffe was just three years old. (Yet still 6 or 7 feet tall.)

I was just taking my regular random pictures but Carter sent me on a very specific mission. He wanted me to take pictures of animal bums. Not really sure why but when you're 7, animal bums are apparently very funny. Here was one of my better shots. A pair of camels. The animals look very different when you are only looking at their bums. Good thing I had my zoom lens on.

When we were in the arctic exhibit we had some unusual guests. There was a mama duck and her ducklings wandering through the visitor area. I'm pretty sure the ducklings have figured out that kids with popcorn are a good score. Mama duck was not very successful at getting them out from under everyone's feet. Callie tried to give her a hand and did manage to get the family to a safe place in the trees. She even found another nest with mama and some unhatched eggs. It's at this point that Kerry tried to convince Callie that she should do her homework as she's destined to work with animals and needs to study.

Carter also had me on another photo essay mission. The zoo has all sorts of animal sculptures and I had to take a picture of him with each of them. The fun part was that he tried to assume the same pose as the statue he was pictured with. Here he's a tortoise bench. He was also a gorilla beating his chest, a lizard sticking his tongue out and my favourite, some sort of stick insect in a tree. He also did very well with a lion with his paws crossed.

One of the other animals on our must see list was the panda exhibit. The San Diego Zoo is the site of the first Panda ever born in captivity in the US and they continue to have great success. Unfortunately for us, the Panda's were pretty much sleeping and we didn't get much more than a bum picture, which I suppose fit nicely with the theme of the day. Our other favourite exhibits included elephants, polar bears, tigers, penguins and of course penny machines. We didn't even get to see everything it's so big and they are expanding again in 2017. Great place to visit.

We ended our day with a visit to downtown Coronado, which is an island/peninsula near downtown San Diego. We wanted to stop for dinner and check out the sunset. I had a conference here a few years ago and the hotel was built in 1887 so there is lot of history in the area. Many hotels of this era got too expensive to maintain and they were torn down. This one was saved partly because of the amazing location and the amazing beach it sits on. We had dinner at a local pizzeria and came back to the hotel for a swim. Tomorrow we're off to Sea World!