Reuniting with distant relatives
Today's adventure was at the San Francisco Zoo. Yesterday we thought we'd get there, but at about noon we realized it was too late to start a "day at the zoo", so we figured if we planned carefully we could do a great job of getting up and out the door today in time to get over there earlier.
About 1:45 this afternoon we got on the road headed north. As it turned out, getting 3 children and 6 adults coordinated and headed in a northerly direction simultaneously was not quite as simple as we had planned, and as it turns out only 4 of the adults really actually succeeded in the coordination and ultimately made it to the zoo.
Immediately upon arrival at the zoo, before you even get your tickets, you can see into a beautiful yard that holds some amazing giraffes and zebras. There are peacocks as well, but by the time you're finished with your visit at the zoo peackocks are almost as common place as the seagulls. It's so funny because you see these amazing animals on tv all the time but until you see them (again) in real life you forget they're really living things in this world. At that point it's a lot cheaper to say "Wow, well that was certainly worth the trip" and pack up and go home, but you don't.
We headed in to the zoo by way of the gift shop (I forgot a jacket) and the stroller rental place (we only had one stroller -- we needed three, but ultimately ended up with only two and three children playing musical strollers for a couple of hours). We whipped through the children's zoo really quick, and saw some really darn cute prarie dogs and the ever amusing meerkats. I love meerkats. They have a really great meerkat display (?display?) there, where they have little peekholes into their "bedrooms". The kids ran around and hid in the tunnels here and got some romping time in.
We wandered around past the kangaroos and around past the bears. The polar bears looked a little unhappy. No, actually they looked downright depressed, so this wasn't really a delightful experience. On our way through the bears, however, we passed the train. Its name is Little Puffer, and Nikolai was immediately smitten. after about 10 minutes of "Mama, I wanna go on the train!" and "Mama, can we go on the train now?", we actually found the boarding station and climbed on the train. Our tickets/memberships actually came with 4 free train rides, and so we climbed on after only purchasing two extra tickets. There was this guy walking by the train wiht a camera taking pictures of everyone, so I made a mental note to grab pictures later. The train ride it self was actually pretty short. It was two short laps around a small track, but definitely plenty to get Nikolai really excited.
At the end of the train ride I went over to the photo booth to see the pictures they had taken and I was absolutely amazed at how good they were. Consequently I spent quite a bit of money getting copies of all the good ones. I got an 8 x 10 of me and Nikolai that was just beautiful. I think it might be the only picture I have like it, since I'm not one for taking him for periodic professional photos. I'll have to digitize them at some point and post them here.
After the train adventure it was nearly closing time at the zoo and so we decided to head in a bee-line to the big cats, which were of course the most exciting thing we could see there.
The first big cat we saw was the lion. She was sitting quietly in a window looking at a couple of people who had noticed her sitting there and come in for a closer look. She was gazing royally over their heads as if to say "you aren't worth my gaze."
We all gathered in the little room looking through the plastic/glass at the huge cat, and she continued to refuse to acknowledge that we were gathering in front of her. I think ultimately she had gotten to her wits' end, because she went ballistic and started pawing and clawing crazily at the glass roughly 6" from the heads of our 2, 3 and 4 year olds. At that point I'd really had it and so I threw down my purse and climbed over the fence and down into the ravine separating the lion's den and the civilians. I marched up the stairs with every intention of teaching this overgrown cat a serious lesson. Who did she think she was, threatening a bunch of toddlers? She was about to get a piece of my mind and a piece of my cell phone.
Once up the stairs I wielded the deadliest of weapons: my stylus. Upon seeing the stylus she threw hear head back and started belching. I think this is when my yellow belly got the better of me. I threw the stylus at her and ran back down the stairs and back up the sheer cliff by way of a grappling hook.
No, but seriously, I did lose my stylus in the lion's den. Even if it was only because I accidentally flung my cell phone 10 feet in front of me while I was trying to pick up Nikolai, shattering it into more pieces I knew it could separate into, while still maintaining the ability to be quickly assembled and useable.
After the pieces had been assembled, I think her boyfriend heard all the ruckus and started bellowing. She answered him with her own mating call. Nikolai said "She's burping!" Indeed it was quite a beautiful, albeit gassy, mating ritual.
After the lion we continued right on through to the tiger display. The siberian tigers were beautiful. Nikolai seemed mildly interested in the siberian tigers. We went on by to the next tiger display, which showed another type of tiger I'm not quite remembering the name of right now. We sat down on a bench in front of the display, and as we sat a large airplane passed overhead, lower than is normal for most overhead aircraft. The tigers were seriously upstaged by the airplane in Nikolai's eyes.
On the way out I stopped at the gift shop again and got a few things.
All in all it was a really great day. We only spent something like 2 1/2 hours at the zoo, but I think it was just perfect.
About 1:45 this afternoon we got on the road headed north. As it turned out, getting 3 children and 6 adults coordinated and headed in a northerly direction simultaneously was not quite as simple as we had planned, and as it turns out only 4 of the adults really actually succeeded in the coordination and ultimately made it to the zoo.
Immediately upon arrival at the zoo, before you even get your tickets, you can see into a beautiful yard that holds some amazing giraffes and zebras. There are peacocks as well, but by the time you're finished with your visit at the zoo peackocks are almost as common place as the seagulls. It's so funny because you see these amazing animals on tv all the time but until you see them (again) in real life you forget they're really living things in this world. At that point it's a lot cheaper to say "Wow, well that was certainly worth the trip" and pack up and go home, but you don't.
We headed in to the zoo by way of the gift shop (I forgot a jacket) and the stroller rental place (we only had one stroller -- we needed three, but ultimately ended up with only two and three children playing musical strollers for a couple of hours). We whipped through the children's zoo really quick, and saw some really darn cute prarie dogs and the ever amusing meerkats. I love meerkats. They have a really great meerkat display (?display?) there, where they have little peekholes into their "bedrooms". The kids ran around and hid in the tunnels here and got some romping time in.
We wandered around past the kangaroos and around past the bears. The polar bears looked a little unhappy. No, actually they looked downright depressed, so this wasn't really a delightful experience. On our way through the bears, however, we passed the train. Its name is Little Puffer, and Nikolai was immediately smitten. after about 10 minutes of "Mama, I wanna go on the train!" and "Mama, can we go on the train now?", we actually found the boarding station and climbed on the train. Our tickets/memberships actually came with 4 free train rides, and so we climbed on after only purchasing two extra tickets. There was this guy walking by the train wiht a camera taking pictures of everyone, so I made a mental note to grab pictures later. The train ride it self was actually pretty short. It was two short laps around a small track, but definitely plenty to get Nikolai really excited.
At the end of the train ride I went over to the photo booth to see the pictures they had taken and I was absolutely amazed at how good they were. Consequently I spent quite a bit of money getting copies of all the good ones. I got an 8 x 10 of me and Nikolai that was just beautiful. I think it might be the only picture I have like it, since I'm not one for taking him for periodic professional photos. I'll have to digitize them at some point and post them here.
After the train adventure it was nearly closing time at the zoo and so we decided to head in a bee-line to the big cats, which were of course the most exciting thing we could see there.
The first big cat we saw was the lion. She was sitting quietly in a window looking at a couple of people who had noticed her sitting there and come in for a closer look. She was gazing royally over their heads as if to say "you aren't worth my gaze."
We all gathered in the little room looking through the plastic/glass at the huge cat, and she continued to refuse to acknowledge that we were gathering in front of her. I think ultimately she had gotten to her wits' end, because she went ballistic and started pawing and clawing crazily at the glass roughly 6" from the heads of our 2, 3 and 4 year olds. At that point I'd really had it and so I threw down my purse and climbed over the fence and down into the ravine separating the lion's den and the civilians. I marched up the stairs with every intention of teaching this overgrown cat a serious lesson. Who did she think she was, threatening a bunch of toddlers? She was about to get a piece of my mind and a piece of my cell phone.
Once up the stairs I wielded the deadliest of weapons: my stylus. Upon seeing the stylus she threw hear head back and started belching. I think this is when my yellow belly got the better of me. I threw the stylus at her and ran back down the stairs and back up the sheer cliff by way of a grappling hook.
No, but seriously, I did lose my stylus in the lion's den. Even if it was only because I accidentally flung my cell phone 10 feet in front of me while I was trying to pick up Nikolai, shattering it into more pieces I knew it could separate into, while still maintaining the ability to be quickly assembled and useable.
After the pieces had been assembled, I think her boyfriend heard all the ruckus and started bellowing. She answered him with her own mating call. Nikolai said "She's burping!" Indeed it was quite a beautiful, albeit gassy, mating ritual.
After the lion we continued right on through to the tiger display. The siberian tigers were beautiful. Nikolai seemed mildly interested in the siberian tigers. We went on by to the next tiger display, which showed another type of tiger I'm not quite remembering the name of right now. We sat down on a bench in front of the display, and as we sat a large airplane passed overhead, lower than is normal for most overhead aircraft. The tigers were seriously upstaged by the airplane in Nikolai's eyes.
On the way out I stopped at the gift shop again and got a few things.
All in all it was a really great day. We only spent something like 2 1/2 hours at the zoo, but I think it was just perfect.
posted by rebecca at 9:38 PM
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