The Vacation Post You've Been Waiting For...

Summer vacation has been going on for a whole THREE weeks. Everyone who has been reading this blog for the last 6 or more months knows what that means... school break = time to go to the zoo.

Yes, another ZOO post.

How many times can you go see the same zoo animals without wanting to poke out your eyeballs? Well, if you're three years old, there are no limits...

Happy!  :)

But if you're 12 going on 13, you've seen it all and done it all. And riding the stupid train is particularly boring...especially when your mom makes you leave your 500-page, hardcover library book in the car...

Not happy.  :(

Personally, I never get sick of the zoo. You never know when you will see something that makes your jaw drop...like an elephant penis...or something that makes you go "awwwwwwwwww"...like an adorable baby giraffe.

Baby is next to the tree on the left. See? It's the small one. ;-)

I let the kids take most of the pictures this zoo visit. I could have made several thumbnail collages of 'finger shots' but opted not to. Instead, I am sharing some very mundane animal pictures...sorry, no penises...

Left: the zoo now has 7 otters. They were frolicking wildly in the water and having a blast. It reminded me of my kids fighting, but the otters looked like they were having fun. 

Center: this is the first time EVER that I have seen the warthog. I actually used to think they were lying about having a warthog. Right: the emu was out of the corner.

We went to the Reptile Room. I try to stay out of that place because there are a bunch of 'quiet please' signs posted all over, and my kids have sign-blindness. This time, though, they begged. And were relatively quiet...and took lots of pictures. Thankfully, for the sake of the animals, without the flash...

Left: the frozen frog. Another visitor kept insisting that it was a fake...but I could see it breathing.

Center: Big G insisted this turtle is his 'spirit animal.' He launched into a 20-minute dissertation on what that means and why he believes this. I have no idea what the other 3 kids were doing during this time.

Right: super cool bright blue frog that was only photographed because I insisted it be.

Big G did eventually get with the Fun Program. He was the primary photographer and even played nicely with his little brother...

Pretending to surf on top of a swimming tortoise. 

Q-Man went on his first-ever roller coaster ride with his more-experienced sister...

...and loved it! 

And for some reason, there's this picture of dirt...

...not entirely sure what that's all about. 

And it isn't even in focus. 

Maybe I took that one...I've been having real 'focus' issues lately.

Happy weekend to all :)

The Wild Thang at Costco...

Today I took the kids to the zoo.

"Good God, woman...not another f*ckin' zoo post? You've posted about the f*ckin' zoo like THREE times in the past 8 months. It. Is. Boring. ... unless you have more pictures of 5-legged or two-trunked (i.e. exposed male) elephants to share..." :)

First of all...it was a different zoo, okay? And second of all...this zoo has no elephants. Really. So, sorry...but there are none of those kinds of pictures this time.

We had a bit of trouble leaving the house early enough to make the morning carpool lane and get across the bridges on the cheap(er). There was a lot of yelling...some hunting around for unfound reciprocating zoo membership cards...an escaped toddler who ran gleefully up and down the block being chased by her siblings while mommy hunted for those *%#@ingmissing cards...a phone call and some sweet-talking to obtain an official email stating that I hold a family membership at a reciprocating institution and then the printing of that document...

We ended up leaving an hour later than I had hoped. But this is not unusual.

The drive into SF was pleasant though pricey... $10 in bridge tolls. Traffic was light; the Golden Gate Bridge looked spectacular against the bright blue sky. Parking was easy...but also pricey at $8, the admission line moved quickly, and there were no problems with my official email thing being accepted for a hefty discount...yay!

And we went in.

It was a glorious Bay Area day, and the San Francisco Zoo was not too crowded. Unfortunately, it would appear that beautiful days usually mean lazy animals. Does anyone else notice this? 

We hit the Children's Zoo section first.

Intended to be a cute photo of all 4 kids...

and I patiently waited until the hordes of others had finally moved on...

but, as luck would have it, Q accidentally shoved Miss C's head in between two of the metal goosenecks. She is crying and X is reading him the riot act.

The rarely-found-in-captivity Guinea Pig.

I was forced to take this picture and forced to promise to put it on here.

Sorry.

The Prairie Dogs were having issues.

Apparently, until April the moms are protecting their babies who are hiding out in the underground nests. The non-moms are all out in the open getting barked at by the moms.

And then there was this guy...

poor thing has some sort of skin condition...it really made me sad.

Older than me at 50 years of age, this Great Horned Owl is named King Richard. 

She had been living at the zoo for 17 years before laying an egg to let them know that the name wasn't working for her. 

Yeah...a millipede.

The guy said the feet tickle and prickle sort of like a toothbrush.

And he let us pet it...it is very hard and crunchy-feeling.

We left the excitement of the Children's Zoo to go fight the seagulls for our lunch...aggressive bastards. Throughout lunch, Q wouldn't stop playing with his loose tooth (yes, another one).

He told me he wanted me to pull it out when we got home.

It didn't make it all the way home.

Part of lunch consisted of chocolate chip cookies. Whenever we go to the San Francisco Zoo, we have to bring these because the first time Q remembers visiting this particular zoo, he had a stand-off with a peacock over his chocolate chip cookie. He has orchestrated such a stand-off every time we visit now. This visit would be no different. Except that we didn't see any roaming peacocks before he had already devoured his allotted two cookies...

Peacock:  Dude...where's the cookie?

Then there were the capybaras...world's largest rodent.

G says, "Mom...it's like a donkey crossed with a hamster."

Must say I agree...and I laughed really hard at this observation.

Then G took a picture of a pacing tiger. In case you didn't know, the San Francisco Zoo is the zoo where a visitor got killed by a tiger on Christmas in 2007. Apparently, an investigation unearthed the facts that these dickheads guys were taunting the tiger and...well...she got pissed.

This is not that tiger.

And the zoo totally upped the 'security' of all animal enclosures...

this shot was taken through super-duper thick glass.

I finally got a decent shot of all four kids...sort of looking in the same general direction at least...and one is actually smiling :)

Too bad the bear didn't get the memo...

And if you've made it this far in this yet-another-zoo post and are wondering what in the heck Costco has to do with any of this...

Yes...leopard pants. Different leopard vest. Snake shirt. 

A snow leopard/leopard throw blanket tucked under her arm.

What you can't see is that inside the awesome pink Crocs, 

...wait...

...no...

yes!

TIGER SOCKS!!!!

The wildest thing we saw all day was next to us in line at Costco. 

What did we see at the zoo? *warning: graphic picture at the end*

*note that warning in the title*

And so vacation time rolls around again...

What? What's that you say?

Vacation???

Yes, ten days of it... from last Friday all through this coming week. Remember...my children seem to be on vacation more than not. It's a French thing. And more vacation must be better than less because you know the French are superior parents... (have you noticed that I haven't touched that one yet? yeah, I'm not going to dignify that delusional book with anything more than this casual mention...for the time being, anyway. Plenty of other people are doing a great job taking her b.s. to task).

So...what do we do when faced with vacation?

That's right! We head to the zoo.

We are very fortunate in that we live easy driving distance to the Oakland Zoo. Once a zoological embarrassment, the Oakland Zoo has become a world-class small zoo with large, very natural habitats. The animals do not seem bored or depressed, and there is space for the kids to run around and fun rides (which we did not go on this time). All of my kids love the zoo; it's exciting and educational. Even Big G always seems to learn something new and profound at each visit.

Back in August, he learned that there are a lot of ignorant people who go to the zoo...especially when it comes to differentiating between monkeys and apes. And he learned that some kids are more of a handful than his younger siblings.

Then on our zoo outing in October, he discovered the joys of photography. He was able to get many images of many of the animals exposing themselves to us...literally and figuratively. But I guess since they are always naked, it isn't really considered 'exposure', right? And there was nothing indecent about it on that visit...just nature in action...bats acting aggressive and apes sunning their balls and getting groomed. Good, clean fun.

This visit was a little different.

After stopping off to see the giraffes...

I think that's the new baby giraffe way up in the background by the fence, 

but we totally didn't see it when we were there and it might just be perspective 

that makes that particular giraffe look small.

...we ventured over to the camels...where G reminded us of this joke...

source

I guess this is kind of graphic, too...oops.

...while he snapped this picture...

The camel was rolling around on his back in the dirt...

but got shy when the camera came out.

At the seemingly-empty lion enclosure, G managed to get this...

click to make it bigger and see the male lion head in the middle.

We agreed that combining that lions with the zebras would make for a much more exciting exhibit...

...though most likely very short-lived.

And then it was on to the elephants...

The Oakland Zoo has 4 elephants...3 females and one male. The zoo utilizes cutting-edge handling practices designed to protect both the animals and the handlers. They have done a lot of work to create a very elephant-friendly, safe environment.

This female was hanging out calmly at the watering hole...

To see the watering hole in action, click here.

The two other females were hanging out in the upper and more private section of the enclosure. The male was ... well, ummmm... he was peeing. I thought there was a broken fire hydrant out there in the middle of the habitat and that perhaps the male was using it as a bidet. No. He was creating that explosive stream.

And when he was done, he walked away...

That is not a baby elephant following closely behind...

not a second trunk nor a fifth leg...

...taking care to not kick himself.

In true middle-schooler fashion, G took way more pictures of this elephant than anything else on this zoo trip. And in true mentality-of-a-middle-schooler-fashion, I'm posting this.

Unlike after that last zoo outing, I did not get a killer speed workout in...I went to bed with a massive migraine and finally returned to the Land of the Living today. Glad I got that headache out of the way... I've got a full week of vacation ahead :)  Good times!