The Gray's Wild Adventures: Day 15

We spent today at the San Diego Zoo. Even though we stayed until well after closing before we got “kicked out” we didn’t get to see all of it. It really is an amazing zoo. The only thing a little disappointing about our time here in San Diego is that coming from Arizona it feels quite cool. When you get used to the low 30s, 18-20C with a breeze off the ocean is almost cold. That being said, we know we’re fairing better than our friends up north :) . The first thing we did was take the bus tour at the zoo to get ourselves somewhat aquatinted with its layout. It was a double-decker bus and of course we sat on the upper deck and we had a good view of many of the exhibits. After the bus we took the “Skyfari” tram, which the kids loved, to the other side of the park and started walking. It’s impossible to list everything we saw, but there were definitely some highlights for the kids. Megan’s favorites were the giraffes and the meerkats. Although she couldn’t feed the giraffes at this zoo, it was a great exhibit that allowed us to get much closer to them than the other zoos we’ve been at. There were also two “babies” which were cute. The meerkats (which I think everyone loved) cracked us up with their smiles and how they “posed” for photos!! Sarah loved the Skyfari, so we did it again at the end of our day. It took us high above the zoo and allowed us a great viewpoint down at all the animal and the park. Sarah’s list of favorite animals was quite long, the polar bears, panda bears, turtles & frogs, but I think her favorite was the sea lion show! Near the end of the show though she got stung on the tip of her nose by a bee :(. Poor thing! The stinger was in there as she tried to cry quietly in the crowd of people watching the show. We pulled the stinger out and she felt better after a short while. Joshua’s favorites included the porcupines, turtles but most of all the cougars. When we got to the cougars there was a family there with a baby. The cougars had heard the baby crying and came right down to the fence, pacing back and forth. Some other small children showed up and you could see that the cougars were transfixed on the little ones! When the parents left with the baby the cougars ran over to the corner of the cage and one of them even jumped up on a log with a snarl as they watched them walk away. It was really neat to observe but at the same time we were very thankful for the fence that separated us. They are a very beautiful & powerful animal and certainly best seen at a zoo! Everyone was exhausted after another full day of walking and after a little dinner it was lights-out! :)