Baby Everything. Seriously.
Apr. 14th, 2008 12:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kyburgI will download the pictures from the camera tonight, after I finish the taxes. Anything that isn't completely useless, I'll share. This new camera has a delay between frame, focus and snap that just makes getting anything in motion - impossible. This is NOT the camera for wild animal photography. Anything more than a snail, and you're gonna miss it.
You want cute, go to the Zoo. Right now. Yes, you heard me. RIGHT. NOW.
Jim took the video camera. He got the baby gibbon. Wee gibbony goodness. That was for openers.
Baby lions. Baby giraffe. Baby gazelle. Baby pelicans.
I got my owl fix. Year old milky eagle owl. FWOOSH right over my head. Happyhappyhappy cockatoo coming into the park.
It also looks like the foundation has been hard at work making changes - most of them good, all of them visible.
One, if you join the club like we did? Parking included, entrance included, all additional shuttles inside the park included...you don't?
Pay as you go. Everywhere you go. Get used to it.
(Wild Animal Park, BTW. The Zoo zoo has always been like that.)
The big railway is gone. Replacing it is a series of roads that shuttles drive on that is both shorter and more intimate, and if you buy once, you've bought for the whole day. Go once, go often. It's never the same way twice.
Riding it, you can see MORE trucks with MORE people going even closer to the animals for feeding tours (something like another $75 - $90 bump), heyyyyyy. And the sleepover camps have been so popular, there is now a dedicated area with the tents up year-round. (Those are the $300 per person, per night suites. In addition to your entry fee to get in. "Roar and Snore.")
This park has also made HUGE strides in being accessible to disabled persons. Used to be, if you were wheelchair or walker-using, this was a TOUGH park to navigate due to the slopes. You got in the tram, went around the perimeter of the park and that was about all anyone could manage easily outside of bipedal locomotion. Some of the steepest grades were gravel, and not at all safe for most people.
They're gone. The worst one now has a lookout with a food vendor, stairs - and a terrific elevator system. Dynamite view of the entire valley. Points all around to the bright penny who saw the need and designed something just incredible to meet it. You could spend hours up there with a telescope and see just about everything without getting on the tram at all.
You're also encouraged to buy food and drinks inside the park - all the revenues generated go to zoo programs. However, this is the first time I'd noticed beer being sold inside the park. Both in the bottle and on draft. Huh.
Pretty good selection, too.
But we also came across table after table after table set up with high school/college volunteers discussing conservation, wildlife and other topics. Plenty of take home documentation. They are also STOKED about the new hospital on site and will happily thank you for the support you've given to the zoo over the years that made it possible. STOKED.
California Condor program doing well - they've brought the species back from 13 to over 300, over 150 of which are in the wild. Considering this is a bird with over a 16' wingspan (think of the size the habitat has to be to support something that big) - wow. There are three other species mentioned in very broad terms they are attempting the same with.
Same 9 Northern White Rhino figure as last time. This zoo has four of them. No change. A species in ecological hospice, but they're still trying.
It's buzzard bay, after all. And they have loads of them still.
Temperature behaved on Saturday (Sunday, with the 90+ degrees? Glad I missed that one.) -![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
dracowayfarer joined us for his birthday present - and I think we did okay, although we did do our traditional "veer to the right of the entrance and stay there" we always manage to do, and miss half the park to the LEFT of the entrance that we never get over to.
I say we need to go back more often, every time we go - and only putting this on the calendar in February and then sticking to it made it possible. All the same, it did jump out at us...and I think it did other folks too.
I'll happily go back (pack a lunch) - but man, it's a haul out from Torrance. I think estimated a two hour drive each way, and it was a tank and a half of gas overall.
---
Cheese arrived. Put it in the refrigerator, thinking nothing of it until I got home and opened the door and went WHAT DIED WHAT and oh. Cheese. Lots of it. Right.
Gotta get that party on the boards. After the taxes are done. Right.
You want cute, go to the Zoo. Right now. Yes, you heard me. RIGHT. NOW.
Jim took the video camera. He got the baby gibbon. Wee gibbony goodness. That was for openers.
Baby lions. Baby giraffe. Baby gazelle. Baby pelicans.
I got my owl fix. Year old milky eagle owl. FWOOSH right over my head. Happyhappyhappy cockatoo coming into the park.
It also looks like the foundation has been hard at work making changes - most of them good, all of them visible.
One, if you join the club like we did? Parking included, entrance included, all additional shuttles inside the park included...you don't?
Pay as you go. Everywhere you go. Get used to it.
(Wild Animal Park, BTW. The Zoo zoo has always been like that.)
The big railway is gone. Replacing it is a series of roads that shuttles drive on that is both shorter and more intimate, and if you buy once, you've bought for the whole day. Go once, go often. It's never the same way twice.
Riding it, you can see MORE trucks with MORE people going even closer to the animals for feeding tours (something like another $75 - $90 bump), heyyyyyy. And the sleepover camps have been so popular, there is now a dedicated area with the tents up year-round. (Those are the $300 per person, per night suites. In addition to your entry fee to get in. "Roar and Snore.")
This park has also made HUGE strides in being accessible to disabled persons. Used to be, if you were wheelchair or walker-using, this was a TOUGH park to navigate due to the slopes. You got in the tram, went around the perimeter of the park and that was about all anyone could manage easily outside of bipedal locomotion. Some of the steepest grades were gravel, and not at all safe for most people.
They're gone. The worst one now has a lookout with a food vendor, stairs - and a terrific elevator system. Dynamite view of the entire valley. Points all around to the bright penny who saw the need and designed something just incredible to meet it. You could spend hours up there with a telescope and see just about everything without getting on the tram at all.
You're also encouraged to buy food and drinks inside the park - all the revenues generated go to zoo programs. However, this is the first time I'd noticed beer being sold inside the park. Both in the bottle and on draft. Huh.
Pretty good selection, too.
But we also came across table after table after table set up with high school/college volunteers discussing conservation, wildlife and other topics. Plenty of take home documentation. They are also STOKED about the new hospital on site and will happily thank you for the support you've given to the zoo over the years that made it possible. STOKED.
California Condor program doing well - they've brought the species back from 13 to over 300, over 150 of which are in the wild. Considering this is a bird with over a 16' wingspan (think of the size the habitat has to be to support something that big) - wow. There are three other species mentioned in very broad terms they are attempting the same with.
Same 9 Northern White Rhino figure as last time. This zoo has four of them. No change. A species in ecological hospice, but they're still trying.
It's buzzard bay, after all. And they have loads of them still.
Temperature behaved on Saturday (Sunday, with the 90+ degrees? Glad I missed that one.) -
dracowayfarer joined us for his birthday present - and I think we did okay, although we did do our traditional "veer to the right of the entrance and stay there" we always manage to do, and miss half the park to the LEFT of the entrance that we never get over to.I say we need to go back more often, every time we go - and only putting this on the calendar in February and then sticking to it made it possible. All the same, it did jump out at us...and I think it did other folks too.
I'll happily go back (pack a lunch) - but man, it's a haul out from Torrance. I think estimated a two hour drive each way, and it was a tank and a half of gas overall.
---
Cheese arrived. Put it in the refrigerator, thinking nothing of it until I got home and opened the door and went WHAT DIED WHAT and oh. Cheese. Lots of it. Right.
Gotta get that party on the boards. After the taxes are done. Right.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2008-04-14 08:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-14 08:09 pm (UTC)That one.
no subject
Date: 2008-04-14 08:25 pm (UTC)Ah!
Date: 2008-04-14 08:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-14 08:32 pm (UTC)We love elephants.
We need to go back.
(And I say THAT every time, too. *headdesks*)
no subject
Date: 2008-04-15 04:01 am (UTC)I really should have refilled that souvenir drink bottle... $10 for that thing.
I'm going to try sending my batch of photos to you via Gmail. In the meantime, here's my entry:
http://dracowayfarer.livejournal.com/139622.html
no subject
Date: 2008-04-15 06:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-15 10:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-15 10:41 pm (UTC)