Polars, Pandas and Horned Frogs, Oh My!

We are on vacation in California and our first stop is San Diego. Tom's Grandma has allowed us to stay with her for a few days which has been very nice. Her view is unlike anything that you can see in Texas and the weather is fantastic!

Today, we went to the San Diego Zoo. Our GPS system on the cell phones made the trip a bit more difficult than necessary. Neither of us can figure out how the GPS can not find a signal in the wide, open space of Southern California, but for some reason it was not working...

After arriving at the zoo, we went straight to the SkyFari, a big gondola system that takes riders up the to the top of the zoo. The eagle-eye view of the zoo and San Diego is pretty amazing. Balboa Park has some beautiful architecture that is especially remarkable from the sky.

At the top of the zoo, resides Lauryn's favorite animal, the Polar Bear! Prior to seeing real polar bears, Lauryn was able to pose with "Churchill" and the polar bear statues. We had to wait for the polar bears to come out but when the zookeeper let a polar bear out, we had visions of Molson - sniffing and checking out the environment. The polar bears in San Diego get to live out summer year-round because the exhibit mimics an Arctic summer. They lounge around, splash in the water, and eat fresh fruits and vegetables.

The primary animal attraction of the zoo is probably the panda bears. While walking through the Panda exhibit, you have to be quiet and walk past zoo workers that "guard" the animals that are on loan from the Chinese government. Mostly, pandas sleep and eat bamboo. Today, we were lucky enough to see one up and moving. I never realized that they are pigeon-toed when they walk.

One statue that did surprise us was a horned frog. Lauryn and I posed with it, flashing our TCU pride. Since LT is a Charger and a TCU alum, I wonder if that had any influence on the zoo... Go Frogs!!!