We had a leisurely morning after getting up around 7:30…coffee/tea
and paper reading. I ate one of the oranges, one of the passion fruit and split
the cherimoya with Al. About 8:20, we decided to head to the zoo. Our Uber
arrived, after first going to the alley side of our building before figuring
out that wasn’t right and coming around to the front.
Clockwise from upper left: passion fruit, naval oranges, sweet lime, kumquats, cherimoya, blood oranges
Our Uber Pool stopped to pick up Eric on the way and we arrived
at the zoo after 9. We spent all day until almost closing, just walking around
the 100 acres of zoo. It’s #10 in the world, in terms of number of species held
(650). #9 is the London zoon with 755 species on 36 acres. #8 is the Bronx zoo
with 650 species on 265 acres.
It was a really good zoo. We skipped some of the bird
exhibits but caught all of the ‘charismatic megafauna.’ The one exhibit we
really liked was the cheetahs. The cheetahs are raised with a domestic dog so
they each have a dog-buddy. The dogs keep the cheetahs company as well as
calming them when they need to have some sort of procedure done.
We left the zoo around 4:30. We’d thought earlier in the day
that we might want to check out Balboa Park as long as we were there. However,
we were really tired of walking and decided to just go back to the house. Our
Uber Pool companion, John, was an artist staying at an artists-only AirBnB
place. It’s only $10/night plus a piece of art for the house. He’s been there 2
nights and says it’s awesome. The host and his 5-yr old daughter have been
great. He’s headed to paint the sunset for his host’s art collection.
Back at the house, the cat was waiting outside the door. We
checked its nametag and discovered its name is Vicious Psychokiller.
We had wine and chilled. We walked a LOT again today. I didn’t
use my phone app because I knew I wouldn’t remember to pause it while we rode
the sky tram, so I don’t know exactly how much…but it was a LOT.
After resting up, we went window-shopping for dinner. We
ended up at Nati’s Mexican Restaurant, voted OB’s best the last 6 years. I had
the burrito special; Al had a tamale and enchilada. They were ok, nothing
stellar.
We walked Newport looking for something sweet. We ended up
at Beach Sweets where I got a couple of turtles (one milk, one dark) and Al got
chocolate/peanut butter fudge.
When we got back to the house, Abdullah had the dogs out in
the front yard and was somewhat alarmed when Charlotte (chocolate cocker
spaniel) went charging out of the yard. He calmed down when he realized it was
us and that Charlotte had recognized us.
