San Diego - Waves, Friends and the Zoo

This has been a busy whirlwind week of saying good-bye to some friends and greeting others. The weather has improved with much more sun than clouds and warmer temperatures. Despite  the few days of rain we have decided that the weather in San Diego is everything we have always heard it is. Too bad it is so expensive to live here.

It was nice enough that we went to see Paul and Trudi who are staying in Campland, located less than a mile away from us. It is a great park with a couple pools and hot tubs that Paul and I took advantage of to soak our bones. 

We expanded the Betty's web a bit when we got Bernie and Dodo together with Paul and Trudi. We met them in different places, but we have all been to Betty's. We had a great dinner on the ocean in Pacific Beach. The great variety of restaurants is another reason we like San Diego.  

Since Bernie and Dodo were leaving we had all the new friends over for happy hour(s). A great time was had by all, we think.

The day before Bernie and Dodo left Mike and Sherri arrived from WashPA for a visit. On the first day we just explored the local area around La Jolla, Mount Soledad and Torrey Pines and let them soak up some of that California sunshine. 

There was a high surf warning and the surfers and pelicans were loving it.

The breeze pushed surf made for some great crashing waves on the rocky coast.

On every San Diego visitors list a trip to the San Diego Zoo should be near the top of their to do list. The zoo is celebrating 100 years and continues to be one of the best in the country. It is really impossible to see it all in a day, but admission does include two different buses, one is a tour through the park, the other with off and on privileges, and the skyfari, an overhead tram. Even with the rides there is a lot of walking required, much of it up and down steep hills.  

Here are just a few of the 3,500 animals in the zoo.

Gazelles

Tasmanian Devil.

Koala

Giraffe.

Flamingos.

Several different bears.

Panda

A very active otter.

Snow Leopard

Elephant

The king and queen Mike and Sherri.

The king and queen of the beasts

The skyfari gives you a great overview of the zoo and is the quickest way back to the entrance.

The ever improving zoo is putting in a huge new area, Africa Rocks, to better show the animals from that continent.

Without a doubt something not to be missed (like we did on our first visit) is a small bird aviary near the entrance. It is a chance to get real up close with some beautiful hummingbirds.

Plan on spending some time here as the birds are often hard to spot.

Our patience was rewarded with some very neat pictures. 

In addition to hummingbirds there were several kinds of tanagers.

I've never been able to get these kind of close up pictures in the wild. I did not even use my telephoto lens.

This one really blended in with the leaves except for the blue and yellow head. The San Diego Zoo is very impressive with such a large variety of animals and the continuing improvements they are making.

This was only the first couple of days of Mike and Sherri's visit and we are looking forward to doing more exploring and having a FUN time with them.