7-7-7 - Visit to the zoo and the park

Scott and I took advantage of the beautiful sunny day here in San Diego and went for a short walk to the world famous zoo right by our house. It's nice to live so close and have a season pass because we can enjoy just a few animals at a time instead of having to pack it all in in a single day. I prefer to watch them for a while and not just grab a quick snapshot and run to the next animal.


We started with a few birds - very cool birds I must mention. The peacock was not open, but walked right in front of us! This other very cute bird (I can't remember the name) let us get right up to him and he was so fluffy and cute. If I didn't think I might disturb him, I would have reached out to pet, but I thought I would try to be more considerate.

I don't remember having seen the sun bears when I've gone by the exhibit at the zoo previously, but the mom and baby came by today and were super cute. This is a picture when the baby took off and played for a while on his own. The mom was pacing in one corner, that I guessed was maybe the feeding area - perhaps she was waiting for food?



I've also never seen the lions out - they usually sleep over 20 hours a day so it's pretty rare to see them walking around. But this lioness walked right out in the sun and laid down - she was so beautiful!







The meercats are probably some of the cutest creatures at the zoo and I couldn't figure out which picture was cutest, so I had to put them all up. Scott and I watch an HD program that talked about meercats one day and we learned that there is always one that is on the lookout. That's how we (or Scott since he reminded me) knew what this one was doing as it perched high up on a rock and kept looking around and trying to figure out what all the sounds were. The others were lounging around laying all on top of one another. There was another lone one posing perfectly for a picture and staring at us zoo-goers.

The rhino was taking full advantage of the cool water since the heat from the sun was pretty intense. This is one of the few animals that I wouldn't want to snuggle up with. Even the big bears, though scary are very fluffy and still seem snuggly.















After the zoo, we walked into the beautiful Balboa park and enjoyed the sights and I had a yummy and very beautifully prepared sorbet desert at the Prado restaurant. On the way back home, I decided to cool down my feet with a little dip in the fountain. FUN!