No, my spell-check is not broken. I’m talking about the 4 Baer’s; my daughter, her hubby, and my 2 granddaughters. Last weekend they talked me and hubby into going to take them to the San Francisco Zoo.
Neither me or hubby wanted to spend an entire day walking around looking at smelly animals, but alas, we were out voted.
It has been many, many years since I went to the zoo ( my 30-year old daughter was 6 the last time), and we went to the zoo closest to us. I thought it was a very fine zoo. People tell me “Oh, the one in San Francisco is so much better!” Maybe 24 years ago it was the best zoo in California, but I don’t think it is now.
Don’t get me wrong – we had fun. The granddaughters loved it and I took a ton of pictures. Some of them were blurry (animals move you know). Most were good photos, even the ones of the ground.
One of my issues with the SF Zoo: Where are the Elephants?
Not even one elephant. Lots of farm animals. Goats, pigs, sheep, and a donkey. But no elephant. I had a lot of trouble getting over that. One week later and I’m still puzzling about it. But let’s move on…
Our first surprise was at the ticket booth. Tickets and parking added up to $77. This is not Disneyland, people. It’s the ZOO!.
The first animal we saw was a giraffe. Well, we saw a spotted neck with a clump of leaves instead of a head, but we figured this to be a giraffe.
We were right. Can’t fool me even after 24 years 😉
I can’t tell a male giraffe from a female one, but I would bet it was female because she was snooty and turned her back on us. 
She went over to visit a smaller giraffe that was in a cage. As she lumbered along, it reminded me of the Brontosaurus (or Veggiesaurus if you prefer) from Jurassic Park.
. Could this be Brandon the baby giraffe and his mommy? Probably.
In the background? A goat of course. They were hanging out with the giraffes. I noticed other species with odd roommates.
.
Peacocks hung out with practically everybody. We must have seen a dozen of them, and not one of them would show off his plumage. I guess they don’t show off unless peahens are around, and they were off sitting on eggs or something. 
We spent a lot of time with the prairie dogs. Not really exotic zoo animals, but helluva lot of fun to watch. My 18 month-old granddaughter fell in love with them and did not want to move along. . 
Even these little guys have little cell phones..
Most of the animals in the zoo seemed sad to me, so I really enjoyed watching the prairie dogs and the meerkats. You couldn’t help but laugh out loud at their antics.
Not sure if we saw the family of meerkats playing possum, or taking a snooze in the sun.
This guy must be King of the Meerkats. Or thinks he is.
Well, I could go on (and on, and on…) and give you the blow-by-blow account of our day at the zoo. But I won’t. I have more cool pictures, but they can wait until another post.
I have not posted anything in a few days because I have not been inspired by anything except my grandkids and who wants to read that? Also, I have caught up on all the blogs I follow and I spend all my writing time reading, then I don’t have the time to write.
Sometimes I just need to step back and see my life and the world around me. Take a deep breath. Stop pushing myself to do, do, do every minute of the day. Take a trip to the zoo.
Even if there are no elephants.
Jodi Lea's Place 
The last time I went to the zoo was almost 10 years ago. I need to go back … 🙂
LikeLike