Spencem & Angelmouse in LA Day 8

[spencem]

Saturday, December 27th, San Diego Zoo

After our night in the 'luxury' of the Holiday Inn we were awake fairly early, after showers and such Son and I went up to the 10th floor to take a look at the huge ships in the naval base just across the way from us.



We were checked out and in the Jack in a Box next door for breakfast by 9:30. Once fed we found our way to the free parking at the zoo.

The zoo is set in a canyon in Balboa Park and has some very steep paths, don't let that put you off there is a bus tour for those that don't want to walk. Angelmouse settled for an ECV, with a warning that its battery would probably go dead even with her slight weight. Once that was rented we set off into their newest exhibit the monkey enclosures.



You walk along a high-level path through the trees and at the height most of the various monkeys will be at, this is cleverly built into the side of the hill, so you stay on the flat and the land falls away beneath you. There are also larger enclosures for the larger apes, including the now normal glass walls that allow you to get oh so close.



Because of being built into the canyon the layout can be a little confusing, but we found our way down into the bottom via two huge aviaries using just slopes, if your walking then there are some stairs and even an escalator or two. We had to queue for about 10 minutes, including some slalom driving from Angelmouse around the rope, to see Son's favourites the pandas.



We then trudged up the opposite slope to see the large polar bear exhibit, like Seaworld this is outside so I don't know how the bears get on in normal temperatures, but today was cold again and for once they were not all asleep (there were three in total two active).



While going to and from these highlights we were constantly passing other animals, like zebra, pigs, flamingoes, sun bears, various small cats and such, your 'normal' zoo fare.

On the way back toward the entrance, back up a hill, the ECV started to run low and I ended up having to give it a little push on the steeper parts. We could have stopped and asked one of the many staff to call the rental place and they would have come to swap it, but we thought it would be quicker to just keep going as we were heading for the main entrance anyway. One the way up we passed the tigers, they had a huge enclosure but the three cubs were squeezed into one small corner by one small window. There was a bit of a paparazzi-style scrum but I got a reasonable picture, neither Angelmouse nor Son got close.



Continued below...

[spencem]

Once up to the entrance plaza we had lunch consisting of better than normal sandwiches in the main restaurant, they were huge and Son and Angelmouse could easily have shared. Today was Angelmouse's turn for the group cold so after lunch and the inevitable trip around the gift shop we called it a day without seeing about a third of the zoo. What we had seen were our highlights and very well presented. San Diego Zoo is highly rated among the worlds zoo and I can see why. You could easily spend all day there and not see everything, there are a couple of shows and a sky ride in addition to the exhibits. They are also just building a massive new elephant enclosure that from the artists impressions looks like it will be fantastic.

On the way back up the I5 to LA I decided to get nostalgic and came off of the interstate at Dana Point to join the US Route 1, the Pacific Coast Highway. 10 years ago on my first trip out to California Angelmouse had come with me. I had spent the entire week in the office and she had gone out with the various wives from the office who didn't work (including a very memorable trip to South Coast Plaza, a very upscale mall, with the CTO's wife ). On the Friday lunchtime the boss announced that I had done enough work for a week and arranged to collect Angelmouse, took us both to lunch in Newport Beach marina and then drove us down PCH to Dana Point. As the sun set he stopped at a beachside car park and discretely moved away leaving us two to stand and watch the sunset. It's something we still talk about today.

Today's mission was a little different in that my mother tells me off if I don't take son the beach on holiday, despite him much preferring theme parks. We found what I think was the same car park and put him on the beach so I could gather evidence to keep his grandmother happy.:happy-smi Angelmouse decided the sea air would do her good and joined him.



I also took some photos of the low-cost housing in the area, I could quite fancy one of these.



After a few minutes on the beach we continued up PCH to Newport Beach where despite my wife's doubting my navigation skills and memory I found a way back to the I5.

We got back to the Château D' 'Uffman to find that surprisingly they had not moved out nor changed the locks, but were in fact ready to give us some tea Once we had caught up on the various weekend activities we watch Son's new copy of Wall-E on the projector and had a reasonably early night before a planned early start for Universal Hollywood in the morning.

[KarenG]

What a lovely day - your photos are excellent.

[budgie6741]

What a great day. Fab report & pics

[Jools]

A lovely day at the zoo. We want to go there when we go back to San Diego.

Brr the beach looks cold

[Guest]

Great day & amazing photos!

[Guest]

Another great day with lovely photos.

[Strommie]

Brilliant photos. San Diego zoo sounds fantastic

[DIBBadmin]

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