zoo gone wild

This week, Mark was loosely scheduled with the flight desk, so he and I took the kids Tuesday morning out to San Francisco again. We love that city; it's architecture, history, culture, access to the arts and other museums, etc. It's all around, unique. We decided to go to the zoo this time, and see what Mont's tell tale reactions would be to the animals. First up, were the giraffes, zebras, and ostriches. He chomped his mouth in response to "What's a giraffe say?" Clever, eh?

Next were the gorillas.. It's not every day you get stared down by the silverback, and certainly not every day you see a silverback walk right up to a female and start mating. Ooooh my goodness. What an animal! They are so eerily human like; I promise there's like an electric charge when he made eye contact with us, it was so ... unexplainable. Very cool animal.

There were all sorts of monkeys, but I don't believe I've ever seen this kind in real life, and now I cannot remember it's name (edited: I thought at first it was a baboon, too.. but it is a Mandrill! who knew..?). It looked like it wanted to rip my face off:

Next was the hippopotamus. Or "Eppoh" as Mont kept saying. What a show this guy put on for us! Ryan (the hippo's name) would linger near the water's edge, then slowly splash his way down the steps, then submerge completely and glide under the surface, then rise with the bubbles up to break through the water. With a huge stretch of his mouth, he'd force water up with his jaw, nearly splashing all his admirers, then force water to splash again with his jaw coming back down to smack the water. Those teeth!! Wow, those teeth. No wonder why they're so dangerous, but what a strange animal. After lumbering his squatty self over to the dry area, it backed up to a rock, then relieved himself (both at once), while swishing his tail back and forth at such a speed, that it went absolutely everywhere. It was both disgusting and hilarious. Another that deserves the "What an animal!"

here's the closest pic of the splash we could get:

Other animals included:
- black swans (the female on the nest, the male in the water. His tail feathers were so lovely - each with separate waves. I can't quite explain it.)
- stork (named Walter)
- grey seals
- polar bears
- grizzly bears (from Montana - they were a lot smaller than AK brown bears.)
- tarantulas (I had no idea they spun webs; just like something you'd see in movies. ewww!)
- anaconda
- parrots, owls, peacocks, hawks, lovebirds, and all sorts of others
- rabbits and guinea pigs (hilarious little things)
- anteaters
- lion (it was male, but it was sleeping, with it's skinny bum in our direction. It's mane looked so feathery soft.)
- snow leopard
- tigers (The same enclosure where two guys were mauled when they stayed after hours, taunting the tiger and it jumped out over the wall and got 'em! There were signs up with so many warnings, and even reinforced caging.)
- horse, sheep, goats (Didn't want him to touch them though.. recently he's been copying Emmy in putting his hands in his mouth. It's really proving to be a hard habit for us to break him of, dang it!)

Mont and Mark rode the little steam engine train while Emmy and I just watched and waved. His joy was beyond measure, laughing, waving, and squealing nearly the entire time. He was a good sport about riding it only once, even though he kept asking "again? again?" because he would get excited again whenever it would race passed us around the zoo.

We were so impressed with this zoo! We went at a perfect time; a weekday, during the school year, and supremely cool weather, we could stay forever because it was not melt-into-the-concrete-hot. The visibility to the animals was wonderful. The glass on the big cats was a little foggy, so I would hold my camera up to the rope fence and just shoot through there, but all the other animals were within a clear view of maybe 10 to 15 feet. If you ever have the chance, you have our endorsement! ... just be sure to have a fully charged camera.. mine died half way through.