148 SAN DIEGO ZOO

The start of my first full day in San Diego, didn’t look good for the plans.  When I woke up very early and looked outside, it was raining hard.  So, I started to write yesterday’s Blog and play around on the internet.  Of course, that seems to be a hit and miss proposition.  It was down, most of the evening and caused me to miss the Canucks game.  When I got up and logged on, it was working but quickly went down again.  Thankfully, I don’t need the internet to write the Blog, just post it.

Anyway, by the time I got done, had my shower, packed my gear and was ready to head out for breakfast, it had stopped raining, but the cloudy skies were looking threatening.  Cloudy skies are certainly not a deterrent for photography, and so I decided to carry through with my plan of the San Diego Zoo.

My Uber picked me up and drove me to the zoo and it was then that I discovered that Spring Break is different from ours.  While our kids went back to school on April 1, theirs just started.  It seemed like there were 400,000 kids waiting to get into the zoo.  An exaggeration of course, but there was a lot.

It is different here than in Florida.  There are no x-ray scanners or physical bag checks to get into the zoo.  In Florida, there were x-ray scanners and physical inspections at Universal Theme Parks and straight up physical searches at Disney Theme Parks.  It was busy inside.

I managed to get to the Panda exhibit before the massive lines I saw later in the day.  Unfortunately, the one Panda that was outside, was fast asleep on a tree branch.  I got what pictures I could of her and then kept moving.  Of course, after I was out of prime photo range, she was up and moving.

In Florida I didn’t take advantage of all the photo ops offered in the various theme parks, except at NASA.  This time I did.  I had my photo taken in front of a green screen at the photo exhibit.  They took 3 poses and I was able to pick the prints up later.  Cost me $25 US for 2 prints in a cardboard frame, where they added in the Pandas.  You get digital downloads as well.

GREEN SCREEN PANDA

GREEN SCREEN PANDAS

I kept, wandering and taking photos and ran into a couple of other photographers using the same big lens.  One fellow was using a Nikon D4s and the Tamron 150-600 the same setup as mine.  The other was shooting with a gasp, Canon.  I couldn’t chat with the Nikon guy as he was from Japan and did not speak any English.  We each gave the other a thumbs up though.  I couldn’t chat with the other guy as he was shooting a, gasp, Canon.

When I got to the gorilla enclosure, again I was met by sleeping animals. But there were lots of other primates close by to get some shots of.  Tigers, sleeping.  Jaguars and leopards, sleeping.  I couldn’t find the polar bears and the hippo was underwater.  There was an interesting animal that appeared to be half deer and half zebra.  I can’t remember what it was called and couldn’t get a full-on body shot because he kept hiding his butt.

SLEEPING PANDA

SLEEPING GORILLA

With all these comments about what I couldn’t shoot, you’d think I got nothing.  That’s not the case however as I came back with 1138 shots.  I spent almost 7 hours walking around the zoo, up and down the hills with almost 30 pounds of gear on my back and front.  I never took any other lens out of the backpack, so I won’t take it on the next trip to the zoo.

I’ll likely be using more of the lenses and flash at the Flight and Space Museum, if that’s where I end up today.  If I go to the Safari Park, I’ll take it all, because I have no idea what I will need there.  I mentioned all the hills in the zoo.  Last time I was here, I remember a far more wide-open area and wide gravel roadways.  Maybe that’s the safari park, only it wasn’t called that then.

All over the zoo, there are signs commemorating donors who thorough their generous contributions, allow the zoo to not only keep operating, but carry on with conservation efforts throughout the world.  The biggest contributor, judging by all the signs is Mr. and Mrs. Ray Kroc.  Owners of McDonald’s Restaurants.