Why I Oughta...

We visited the San Diego Zoo earlier this Summer during our trip to the West Coast.  This is the same trip that we went to the Hotel Del Coronado and stayed near Sunset Cliffs along the coast.   There were just four of us (Nat was tied up with some wedding-related commitments) and these were the four tickets that we bought.  Filing these here under Zoo-related ephemera here on the blog. Africa Rocks opened in 2017 and is/was the largest San Diego Zoo construction project ever.  From San Diego Union-Tribune back a few years : ...the San Diego Zoo — fresh off celebrating its first 100 years — steps into the future with the opening of Africa Rocks, its biggest construction project ever.  The 8-acre, $68 million undertaking relies on the newest thinking about zoos, which find themselves in an ongoing debate about the treatment of animals in captivity and are designing exhibits that are more naturalistic, more focused on conservation than entertain...

On Saturday, we went to the Brookfield Zoo 'Holiday Magic' - along with thousands of our closest friends.  We're members, so Nat and the girls go pretty regularly and she's never seen the parking lot as full as it was two nights ago. The lights were great and the star of the show is the music-sync'd Christmas tree display around the center pond/lagoon.  They have 100ish trees lit up that rock-and-roll with the music.  And fortunately, it isn't all Manheim Steamroller. A disappointment, however, was the animals.  Most of them weren't around or they were inside and we couldn't go in to see them.  The big cats, however were on the prowl, so that was kind of neat.  Every other time we go see the lions and tigers and other cats, they just lay around on the rocks and yawn.  We saw one stalk something - which, I think, ended up just being a shadow - but it was neat to see. If you're taking your kids, make sure you bundle up and bring some light-up t...