Beautiful Wednesday!

Today I went out of town with Liz to San Diego and paid a visit to my favorite place hereabouts--the San Diego Zoo. We picked an excellent day to go because the animals were all up and about, and there were many volunteers telling us all about them.
First we visited the koalas, and they were just about all up! The babies were pulling eucalyptus leaves off the trees, while keeping a close hold with one arm to mom. Meanwhile, the docent told us all about them, how the leaves were toxic, and how they don't impart very much nutrition, and this is why the animals don't generally move around very much. A peacock perched high in a tree and screamed his head off, willing us all to look up as he fluffed out his feathers and sat proudly on his perch.
Then we visited the gorillas, watching baby Frank sleep, looking just like a young child as he curled on the grass. And then we went to the children's zoo, where a keeper told us all about the strange African pangolin, a scaly anteater sort of creature that the zoo had acquired (with his mate)because the pair was taken away from someone who had them illegally. He was very odd. Though I wanted to stroke him, to feel the scales like fingernails on his back and the absurdly soft-looking fur on his belly, I couldn't. And we stood in the dark trying to catch sight of the kiwi as it wandered about its darkened enclosure. I never really saw it, but Liz said she did. We sat for a while at one of the aviaries, watching a tropical bird take a bath in a waterfall, and stood amazed as a keeper threw food in the air that was immediately snatched up by the birds swirling around our heads.
When we finished at the zoo, around 3, we went to Old Town and ate, and then to an outlet shopping mall in Carsbad. We came home tired, but satisfied. What a wonderful day!