Trip to San Diego...Part 1 - Zoo Day

Lots of animal pictures post ;)  Well our wonderful trip with my family to celebrate my mom's 60th birthday and my 30th birthday and of course Tyler's birthday as well which is Friday kicked off with a trip to the zoo.

We had a wonderful time despite the rain that San Diego was having, yeah I thought it never rained in Southern Cali either.  Oh well the first full day we were there it was cloudy but no rain so we hit the zoo. The San Diego zoo is somewhere I always wanted to go and didn't disappoint at all, it was amazing how close you could get to the animals and the surroundings and landscaping you always felt like you were in the forest or rain forest.  Something you must do the next time you head to San Diego!

First we rode the bus around to see where everything was....one of our first stops was the elephants, they look small here but man they were huge!

 A few flamingo's, often at the zoo you don't get to see them this colorful, I know it is all about what they eat but pretty none the less...

 We got right up close to the peacock, we could not get it to show us all of it's feathers but it sure was pretty to see the bright colors so close up!

 The gorilla exhibit was great as well there were quite a few in there, we figured out that this one i think is a mama and the other one next to her was probably her son or daughter, wanted to play with everyone but no one had much interest :)

 Wow were the hippos big, this was one of the best shots I could get since we were closest to their underwater party of the exhibit.  All the straw floating in the water, we soon found out what that was from and probably have a few pictures of that too but I will refrain from posting those ;)

 Now for my favorite, I have never seen a panda in person and always wanted to, their exhibit at the zoo had been redone and we were there for the first day of its unveiling.  They looked so serene, quite and laid back so strange that they are such solitary animals.

 Outside the panda exhibit there were murals that kids had painted, Tyler loved the dragons and wanted a picture by both of them!

 The Polar Bear exhibit was pretty neat too, here are Jared and Tyler poking through the ice with a seal!! 

 Here is a nice close up of the polar bear, he was waiting by this gate since they give them treats throughout the day through it, reminded me of Libby who always sits in the pantry waiting for a treat ;)  We also learned but didn't get to see that every week or month, can't remember which, they cover the whole polar bear exhibit in snow and bury treats in it for the bears, would have loved to seem them on that day!

 Throughout the trip to the zoo we relived many a Disney movies, mainly Lion King and Finding Nemo of course since we saw just about every animal from the movie and Tyler would explaining which animal they were, their Lion King name and then give a little description of them from the movie ;) Here is a good example of one...

 I also loved seeing the Koala's, another thing I don't think I have ever seen...they were so cute and we were all amazed to learn that they sleep almost 20 hours a day!  Most of the animals at the zoo were loving the cooler weather so we got to see them all quite well, this one though was one that I don't think liked it as they were all as close as they could be to the heat lamps!

 One of the various cats/mountain lions we saw on our trip, would hate to run into him in the wild. 

 Finally a little picture by the San Diego Zoo sign....more pictures to come of the next few days adventures but I figured this was enough for one post!