Anouk blowing bubbles

Wild Animal Park

We had an extra day to spare in San Diego since it was too cold to go camping in Joshua Tree, so we checked out the Gaslamp District and Coronado. Some great views along the way, and the Hotel del Coronado was very nice:


Sipping a drink like an adult

Love the maple leaf

Nice downtown view


Sand on the feet, such a great feeling


I love this beach





The next day, we went to the Wild Animal Park, which is operated by the San Diego Zoo. 900 acres of wild animal exhibit, with the "dangerous" ones behind a fence, and a gigantic section of African steppe, where the animals can roam free. It is amazing, and feels like you're really in Africa. We also watched the elephant feeding and walked all the trails to see the exhibits. Anouk loved it and was pointing at all the animals.

Giraffes and rhinos crossing paths

Baby elephant trying to steal food from mommy

Overview of part of the African part


Sleepy.....
We took a ride with a train to get access to the other half of the park




We walked around some more and went to some enclosed exhibits


Cheetahs


Flamingos




Since it was Thanksgiving, it would be hard to find a place for dinner, so we headed to Old Town San Diego, and had excellent burritos and margaritas at one of the great Mexican restaurants.


It was a great trip, even the there was a lot of driving involved.

San Diego Zoo

We spent Thanksgiving week traveling, driving down Hwy. 1 to get to San Diego. We skipped the first days of camping due to rain and stayed in a hotel in Santa Barbara. The drive down the coast was awesome as always, here are some highlights:

Rough coast around Big Sur
In Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park

McWay Falls dropping into the Pacific
Anouk enjoying the view.

We encountered some elephant seals near Hearst Castle; they were just hanging out, no fighting yet.






We had a nice hotel in San Diego, right along the water, and went to the world famous Zoo the next day. It is amazing how well it is laid out, you feel like you're almost in the animals' natural environment. We started at the Giant Panda exhibit, since it gets pretty crowded during the day:




Next were the gorillas and orangutans:





The hippo exhibit is amazing, you can see them chill underwater, with just their nostrils coming out of the water occasionally to breathe (which causes bubbles under water...). The otter exhibit was also a lot of fun for Anouk, as they are very playful, and so was the petting zoo:



A great day, more pictures from the Wild Animal Park to come.