We went to the San Diego Zoo today. It's been 6 years since our last visit. Jennifer's dad has a membership with the zoo and the Safari Park (it used to be called the Wild Animal Park) and is periodically sent free passed to both parks along with other discounts. His latest discounts expired at the end of this month. Realizing he wouldn't be able to use them, he asked us if we'd be interested; we were. After thinking about it; Jennifer and I felt that it would be fun to ask Jordan Graham if he was interested in coming with us. While our excursion to the LA County Fair as a threesome was fun, it wasn't quite the same either. We thought Isaac would like having a friend in the back seat with him on the drive to San Diego and back and we also thought it might be more fun for him to have a companion his own age throughout the day and not have to be stuck with his parents. Jordan said "yes" to our invitation, and plans were made as to the best time that would work for him and us—today was the day.
One of the fun aspects of our trip was the opportunity we had to get to know Jordan better. We've been friends with the Grahams for as long as we've lived in the High Desert. Still, while we have gone on joint family excursions to the fair and other places over the years, usually we as parents would be in one area talking while our kids would be off playing together in a different area. Since we were with Jordan on a one on one basis, we got to be on a more personal level with him (and he with us) on this trip and that made it fun as well. We found out that the last time he had been to the San Diego Zoo was when he was 3-years-old and he didn't really remember the experience (I can relate—I remember telling my dad several years ago that I had gone to my first profession hockey game when I took my family to see the Anaheim Ducks play and found out that I had seen the LA Kings play the Detroit Red Wings back when I was one—okay, that may have actually been my first professional hockey game, but this one was the first one I remembered J).
After the drive down and going through the Disney-like line to make it to the ticket counter, it was after 11 o’clock by the time we finally walked through the entrance. The zoo closed at 5 o'clock, so we had to make good use of our time. Jen and the boys mapped out our plan of attack while I saw a man about a horse. J Upon my return, I tried to get a candid shot of the three of them (Jordan saw me; Isaac noticed me at the last second but couldn't smile in time; Jennifer's look was priceless J) and they told me where they wanted to go. We started off in the Outback and Urban Jungle areas. From there, we visited the Elephant Odyssey, Northern Frontier, saw part of the Panda Canyon, and finished with the Lost Forest. I'd say we probably saw about 75% of the zoo by the time we were finished—not bad for the amount of time we had. Of all the animals we saw, our collective favorites were the koalas, the elephants, the tigers, the gorillas, and the turtles.
Why turtles? We found them in a part of the Elephant Odyssey area (don’t know what turtles have to do with elephants, but I didn’t design the place J). When we first saw them, we found 5 turtles bunched together on a sloped log sticking out of the small stream that ran through their exhibit (I should have taken a picture, but didn't). It wasn't long before one of the turtles identified himself as either the alpha turtle or just the turtle bully of the bunch. This turtle began to slowly kick one of the turtles behind him in the face. The attacked turtle tried to cling to the bark of the log as best as he could, but he slid several inches toward an inevitable drenching in the stream. Not satisfied, the bully turtle then inched up the log a bit and hissed at the turtle next to him. Mr. Bully suddenly seemed to want his neighbor's spot and he began to push in that direction. The neighbor turtle tried to fend off this encroachment, but the bully turtle had better leverage and swiped at his neighbor with his foot ... which loosened the neighbor's grip on the log enough from him to lose his balance and tumble toward the stream. The result was a chain reaction that caused the bully, the neighbor and two other turtles to slide off the log and plunge in to the stream. The only turtle to remain on the log? The turtle who looked as though he would fall into the water first—chalk it up as a lesson in what goes around, comes around. J
I don’t believe I’ve been to any other zoo in Southern California. At one point, Isaac told me that the Los Angeles Zoo is a good one (he went there on a couple of grade school field trips), but since I’ve never been there I have no frame of reference. We got to see quite a few animals and to get some good looks at them. Jennifer wanted to see the koalas. For the most part, they were perched up in individual trees, rolled up into a ball of fur, sleeping. There was one who decided to change positions and move to a higher branch while we were watching him. I was able to get a better picture of him than I thought I did. Jordan wanted to see the elephants. I remember that the last time we came to the zoo was when the new configured elephant paddock had been completed. It’s a very nice set-up and we got to see all of the elephants. We decided to have lunch there. Our one glitch of the day was the three of us forgetting to bring the lunch we had made at home along with us. It was one of those situations where Jennifer thought I had the cooler while I thought she had the cooler and neither of us had it. When I popped the trunk of the car after pulling into a parking space, I knew we were in trouble when Jennifer said, "Chris, where’s your lunch box?" (cue The Price Is Right fail music.) Oh, well. I was stuck paying the exorbitant prices charged by the zoo. This was made up for slightly by my seeing a guy in the dining area who looked a lot like Peter Capaldi the latest actor to play Doctor Who! When I surreptitiously pointed him out to Jen and Isaac, they could also see the resemblance (Jordan had no idea what I was talking about). I wish I could have taken a picture of him, but I would have been way too obvious and the poor man probably would have thought I’d lost my mind. J
After lunch, we saw a jaguar, lions, and a polar bear (to name a few animals). The polar bear wasn’t too interested in swimming, but the area was decorated in Christmas trees that Jennifer liked very much. After visiting the snow leopards, we checked the line for the pandas and found it to be long (as usual). If we had had more time, we might have considered getting in line, but realizing that we had 2 hours left in the day by that time and we still had several animals that we wanted to see, the decision was an easy one. Pandas are cool, but they took a back seat to the other animals. J Isaac wanted to see the tigers. When we arrived at the viewing area, we couldn’t find them at first, but then we spotted them on a ledge above the main area. They were sleeping (one of them was stretched out on its back with a paw in the air and like our cat Gumball J). I noticed that people were able to see the tigers from a nearby walkway running past the ledge. We hiked up this pathway and got a much better view of the two tigers. With our new perspective, we saw that one of the tigers was awake and one was sleeping. While we watched and took pictures, a group of young men, a couple years older than Jordan and Isaac, hiked up the trail to see the tigers (perhaps they had noticed us from down below). One of the guys in the group looked quickly at the tigers and said, “They’re all lazy. All the animals sit around doing nothing. They’re lazy!” After they left, we busted up laughing. What was he expecting the tigers to do … a song and dance routine?
The next to the last animals we saw were the gorillas. We liked them because they seemed to know that everyone wanted a good look at them and would “walk” right past the window partition. Jennifer was able to get some good pictures of them (my camera didn’t do so well in the fading light of the day). Several times the gorillas came right up to the window, so we stayed for several minutes to watch them. After the gorillas, we went to the orangutan enclosure. As it turned out, this was the final exhibit we saw (well, we did go into an aviary but were kicked out by a zoo worker about 5 minutes later who claimed he needed to lock up—it was still about 4:30; go figure). One of the orangutans seemed to be either kissing the glass or doing blow fish; I couldn’t tell which. It looked pretty odd. The male orangutan looked like a mad scientist to me for some reason. Once the announcement about the zoo closing started to be made, we decided we’d pretty much seen everything we wanted to see. It turned out we weren’t too far from the exit from the orangutan’s enclosure. We thought we might have time to go into the reptile house, but the surrounding area was roped off and the only people who could enter wore bands around their wrists. Jennifer got one more picture of Isaac and Jordan posing with a gorilla bust and we called it a day. A fun time was had by all. We made good time coming home and was able to drop Jordan off and make it back to the house in time for Doctor Who—apparently the zoo closed in plenty of time to allow him to get back to the TARDIS and show us his latest episode. J
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