Day 12

San Diego, CA, Sunny, high of 75 degrees

We went to one of San Diego's most famous attractions, the San Diego Zoo. Thats pretty much all we did today, it was exhausting, enjoy the animal pictures! Here is a half zebra, half giraffe, half horse thing. I've never even heard of this, so here it is.

We got to watch feeding time near the reptile area, this bird was there, and thats a mouse in it's mouth.

The bird was crazy, it liked to tease the big lizards that the mice were for. It would bring a mouse down to the lizard's mouth, let it rip a little leg off or something and then run away from the lizard.

Here is a huge galopagos turtle, we got to watch them eat fruit. They make this sound like boulders moving when they walk.

This is a peacock that was in the tortoise pen. I think it was either just a peacock that can roam the zoo or it was just wild, cuz it could hop in and out of the pen. We saw another one in a tree later, so maybe they just have wild peacocks out here.

We saw lots of cool monkeys today. The gorillas were our favorite. One of the things that makes San Diego zoo better then the National Zoo in DC is that you get alot closer to the animals. But we're not sure if its worth $39 for two people to get that close (especially since the National Zoo is free!).

QUACK!!!! The hippo pond had a cool viewing area where you could see underwater. There were lots of ducks in them, so here is the side of the duck you don't normally see.

The polar bears have adjusted to the weather here nicely. I think the 75 degrees year round must be alot different then the arctic tundra.

This was a cool leopard.

This golden retriever lived with this cheetah. Oddly enough, it is the dominant one in the cage. They take it on tour with the cheetah because the cheetah scares easily. A scared cheetah runs 70 mph - not a good thing when you've got a trainer holding the end of her leash.When the dog is around, though, she doesn't get scared because she feels protected by him.

When we got home today, we rearranged the schedule for the rest of our trip. We had messed up somewhere with our scheduling, so we have changed things around, it doesn't change our estimated return date, because we had a few "spare" days built in. But now we are spending a little more time in California, hitting Vegas later (and we saved $25 by changing the date!), and we are going to make an unexpected visit to see Kelly's friend Elizabeth! Click here to see our updated schedule.