Zoos, Zoos and well more Zoos

How many zoos can you visit in one summer? Probably alot. We have visited 3 so far and have many more that we want to visit..Detroit, Toledo, Columbus...those are still on the list and who knows we may find some more. Here are the zoos we have visited so far. Smithsonian National Zoo in Washington DC, San Diego Zoo, and San Diego Zoo Safari Park (yeah two zoos in a one week California vacation!). Our kid loves animals and so do we. She thinks it is awesome to visit them at the zoo and we are hopefully going to get her to tell the difference in a lion and a tiger by the end of the summer!

At the National Zoo...we love that it is free and you get to bring in your own food. I am not a fan of the uphill climb out or the limited number of bathrooms. Not fun with a 2 1/2 year old.

We stopped for a great picture and just enjoyed the day. We took very few pictures today. Which is a huge thing for us. Little Lady enjoyed the animals and loved a random duck that came by to visit her. It was exciting to see an Orangutang actually using the O line. We manged a great visit and avoided the rain. What a good start to the summer.

San Diego Zoo: WOW!!! This place is huge. It took us a full day and while we saw the majority of the zoo we missed the bus tour, the sky ride, and the petting zoo area. We liked that there was a very large variety of animals and the majority were in nice enclosures. Our dislikes...$46 per person entry fee, the bus tour that practically runs you over every 10 minutes, and oh my the large hills!

This zoo has the largest concentration of Kolas outside of Australia

Cheetah!

See became obsessed with flamingos and who wouldn't there were tons of them

While this elephant looks sad. She is happy. She is getting her feet scrubbed, a snack, and teaching people about elephant care

Little Lady loves giraffes

This little baby was born the week before, right on display!

Checking out a helicopter that was used to check animal populations in the arctic

 Little Lady was able to see into all the enclosures and had a great time spotting the animals. Unfortunately we managed to see I think 6 animals pooping and that seems to be all she remembers. She is constantly talking about the elephant that pooped and so on and so on. Also she loves soft pretzels and had 2 of them while we were here. 



 The San Diego Zoo Safari Park is also really nice. When we woke up in the morning and asked Little Lady what she wanted to do she said "see animals at the zoo!". It didn't matter to her we spent the entire day before at the other zoo. Unable to convince her to do something else and  let's face it we love zoo's too. Off we went. Things we loved about this place? The fact that they have many animals in each enclosure. While the exhibits were huge and it was a lot of walking, we saw a bunch of tigers, giraffes, elephants, and it was easy for LL to see the animals. We hardly found an exhibit that we could not see the animal. Also all the fun shows. We saw Chinese acrobats and lots of animal encounters. Dislikes: Again the $46 price tag and limited food options (when your kid only wants a hot dog , 1 hot dog stand at the front of the zoo is not helpful!)

Animal encounter with a Serval

FLAMINGOS!!!

another animal encounter

Enjoying the tigers

The California Condor is this big

The train ride was a lot of fun. Little Lady enjoyed seeing all the animals up close

Mommy and Baby Rhino

Feeding the ducks

The best $3 we spent

feeding the Lorikeets at Lorikeet landing.

Little Lady was a bit hesitant of the birds

Who is bigger the gorilla or S?

Little lady?

Another animal encounter this time with an Echnidna

Rolling a marble ball

It really was a great park. The animal encounters were awesome. We saw plenty of animals close up and learned a little along the way too. Little Lady loved feeding the ducks, talking to the tigers, and watching the acrobats.

We have had a great time at the zoos we have visited so far this summer and Little Lady has already learned more about the animals she loves and cannot stop telling us about the different animals.