Our trip from Arizona

Mommy drives

Marla watches a DVD,
Daddy mans the GPS navigation station.

Only 177 miles more

The Colorado

This is my first time to California,
I'm very excited

Just a town in the valley

They spelled out 'Welcome' with plants.

On our way to the guided bus tour.

The tour is a great way to get a look at the animals.

Then you can decide where to go back to.

Polar bears.

Greetings from the Zoo

It's Melman the giraffe.

Great flowers

There's a bear in there.

That is a Capybara

Marla loves the Capybara

One of the elephants.

This was a nice pond with huge fish in it.

Marla wants a foot massage

In the reptile house.

Awrk. awrk awrk

The sea lion show was very funny.

Beautiful Macaws

Marla loves to climb trees

She is having way too much fun.

There is a petting zoo in the Children's Zoo Area.

Such pretty flowers.

Hornbill

Daddy, what's that?

The house where the racing pigeons live. They are trained to fly from one end of the zoo to the other.

Mommy the butterfly, Marla the worm

A cluster of carnivorous pitcher plants.

"Daddy I'm pretending to drive"

We are deep in the jungle now!

Taking a break in one of the aviaries.

We're all getting a little tired at the end of day one in the zoo.

Day two begins with a check of the map. This place is HUGE!

The Koala's house.

Eucalyptus leaves contain elements that are toxic to most animals.

Koalas can break them down in their stomachs but it takes a long time.

That is part of why they sleep so much.

Even without the animals, the zoo is incredible to look at.

Graffiti.

The Transvaal Lion.

Hurry up Daddy, the bears are next!

Alaskan brown bear.

That was fun!

Now let's go see the monkees!

Marla was go, go, go most of the morning.

Macaque

Marla being silly in the Monkey Trails part of the zoo.

Part of the steepest trail has a moving walkway that you can take up. While we were going up it, the monkeys started screaming in the distance.

It takes you over the African Wild Dog enclosure.

You can kind of see them in there.

We took the Skyfari over the park.

Marla loves that ride.

A view from the Skyfari.

One of the aviaries.

The top of the Museum of Man in Balboa Park.

Coming in for a landing.

Flamingo Lagoon.

A sign explaining the types of birds in the pond.

A beautiful peacock in the tree.

That's quite a name, isn't it?

That looks really weird.

Marla's a little too short.

Playing tag in the jungle.

Marla is explaining something about the jungle to us.

In an aviary.

Time for a break after all that running around.

A waterfall.

Statues at the beginning of the Gorilla Tropics.

Hey Marla, look at the camera.

Marla has a fake smile.

Now Marla AND Mark have fake smiles. I just can't get a good picture.

A board with small statues to explain the different stages of gorilla growth.

Gorillas inside the gorilla enclosure.

It is so beautiful there.

We are standing on the bridge that the waterfall flows under.

At an animal show. That is a foxy pig. His coloring is similar to a fox, so that's what he is called. Did you know that pigs don't sweat?

This emu has been on the Johnny Carson show several times.

Shy animals like cheetahs and other big cats often have a dog that lives with them.

The dog is comfortable in new situations and around people so the cheetah sees that and it helps them stay calm when they are out around people.

Isn't she gorgeous?

The red-tailed hawk flew over the center section of seats...

and landed on the guides glove.

There is a panda research station at the zoo.

Mark bought a lanyard that has pandas on it for his camera.

Only 26 pandas live outside of China. Four of them are at this zoo.

Two of them are on display any given day.

Except when the exhibit is closed for research purposes.

The wall outside of the panda section has a very large mural on it.

It looks like Mark is talking to the pandas.

Mark, Marla and the pandas.

Indimarla Jones

Adrienne the Explorer.

Ready for the beach.

Nice hat.

But this is my favorite.

Gloria the hippopotamus.

They can run up to 30 mph for short distances.

And can weigh up to 7,000 pounds.

Marla bought a small hippo as a souvenir. She seems to have found it lacking after seeing the big version.

A bird visiting the predator bird aviary.

Waiting for the bus to ride towards the exit.

Marla being silly.

I was trying to get a picture of these really weird looking short tree things...

but I kept missing them.

Beautiful flowers.

Passing the elephants again.

The fountain outside is controlled by an anemometer.

That's a wind gauge.

Marla just thinks it's a great place to dance.

Most of the buildings in this part of Balboa Park were built during the 1915-16 Panama-California Exposition.

An indoor tornado.

Marla loved this part of the center.

She spent about an hour playing in the grocery store section.

She brought Mark some food.

She explained what all of it was to him.

Look at this picture. Are the lines straight or curved?

What is wrong with this phrase?

This one is neat, too.

Oops. All the letters fell out.

The El Prado Lily Pond

A great place to take off your shoes...

and run around...

until you fall down.

Marla loves fountains.

While we were driving home we saw a street named after my brother.

Marla felt like dressing like a ballerina this day, so watch for her tutu in the next two series of photos.

Palm Canyon

This garden in the park has 450 palms of 50 different species.

Part of the trail is very steep and made of rocks.

This tree is flowering.

A snail was living in the flower.

Stone faces.

The other end of the path is a set of stairs leading up to a bridge.

San Diego Air & Space Pavilion of Flight

The Spirit of St. Louis

The Apollo 9 display.

The Command Module.

The Wright Brothers.

A plane like the Red Baron's.

Some of the displays were very elaborate.

An engine.

Barnstormers.

Flight attendant uniforms through the years and Marla the ballerina.

This was a kit plane that someone had built and flown for a while and then donated.

You could sit in it and move the rudder and other controls.

Mark was playing with a game where you fly a toy plane in a wind tunnel.

The sound from it made Marla nervous.

Marla really loved playing on the platform of the DC-3 cockpit.

This plane was in front of a large battleship mural.

I liked this display.

The parts of this one were moving.

This orb was connected to a touch screen that let you make it show the Earth as seen from different types of satellites. Or you could make it model any of the planets.

The pretty ballerina stops to pick some flowers.

Marla contemplates...

the Zen garden.

Pretty little dancer..

falls on her butt

climbs right back up.

Marla contemplates the stones.

Great fountain.

Marla wants more noodles.

This lizard was a mosaic of thousands of stones and pieces of glass.

A sculpture garden with the Museum of Man in the background.

Flowers inside the Botanical Building.

A display of carnivorous plants.

Pitcher plants. Aren't they pretty?