San Francisco Zoo

Our first task of the day was to drop Finnur off at the SF-bound bus-stop on the main Google campus. Yes, Google runs a large bus-system in the Bay Area, shuttling its employees to and from work, and between offices, in WiFi-enabled buses. We would have given him a ride, except our minivan doesn't have WiFi, and the SF office and the Zoo happen to be on the opposite ends of the city.

After the customary 50 minute ride north, we finally parked in the 'secret' free parking lot by the Pacific Ocean. This sea-side parking lot has been getting smaller and smaller over the years, as the ocean erodes the coast away (see the concrete blocks in the background - there used to be parking spaces there), but the lot is only a short walk from the Zoo, where one otherwise has to pay $8 to park.

First up, the giraffes! Bjarki has unfortunately hit the age of 'hating the camera' and almost every single picture has him 'scowling'.

Next up: The gorillas. Now, see the huge crowd of people straight ahead? As we arrived at the zoo, my heart sank because there were hoards of people by the entrance. As it turned out, these were classes up on classes of school-children, there on official school-trips. It looked like we'd arrived just as they did, but thankfully, they seemed to be on a much tighter schedule than we were, so by lingering by the gorilla cage, most of the passed us by and we didn't see much of them again.

The reason for lingering by the gorillas was that they were out and about, because they'd recently been fed, and the weather was cool.

The main attraction was the gorilla baby who climbed and played and ate leaves on and around that big rock down there. Bjarki was very interested.

The resident silverback sat very still the entire time were were there.

We thankfully got two maps of the park, because those two kids are very sensitive to imbalances in hand-outs! Also, note that it kinda looks like there's a tiny silverback sitting on the railing... 🙂

A giraffe finishing off the last of the eucalyptus-branch s/he got for breakfast.

The flamingos were all sleeping both times we passed them by!

Who can spot the tiger?!

Me, me, me!!

There didn't use to be a huge plastic window looking into the big-cat enclosures, but a tragic event a few years back changed all that (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_Zoo_tiger_attacks).

'We are lazy lions. Watch us sleep.'

Plastic replica of a bear-head. Apparently they have a crazy structure in their nose which makes them very sensitive to smell.

The zoo has a few peacocks that get to roam around pretty freely. This one was in with the wallabies, and emus.

It wasn't entirely obvious why the peacock was strutting its stuff, but it kept showing off for a long time, and in all directions.

Petting-zoo time! Anna used to be petrified of these goats when she was younger... 🙂

Bjarki kept busy giving the goats a good brushing-down.

I'm including this picture solely because Bjarki looks vaguely happy in it. 🙂

This is why big sisters are awesome!

After having had our fill of animals, we hung out on the playground for a bit. When it was time to leave I let them take a ride on the huge carousel by the exit, which was great fun. 🙂

Time to leave! All in all it was a splendid trip. I had never made it to the zoo so early, and it was a nice change not to have to rush to finish before closing. The weather was also pretty perfect, the animals were mostly active, we managed to hit the cafeteria away from the rush-hour, and the kids seemed to have fun. I sure did! 🙂

We took the scenic tour down south (Highway 280) - I just couldn't face the dreariness of 101 - and it was just as beautiful as I remembered. We picked Finnur up from work and then headed to home-base. Hi Clarissa! 🙂