Tales From The Road: Lions & Tigers, & Bears...Oh My!

Tuesday, November 8, 2016
A day spent at the Riverbanks Zoo and Gardens was very much enjoyed by both Wilson and myself. There is always that feeling in the back of your head regarding animals held in captivity with the world gawking at them...but I reason, if not for the zoos, some of those animals would cease to exist. One could then argue that that is part of the circle of life...oh God, now I'm picturing Simba from the Lion King being held up by his proud father on the big boulder...Talking about circles...welcome to my brain :) Whether or not you are zoo people or not, we had a nice time.

The zoo is part of a larger organization of zoos that work toward increasing the population of various species. Riverbanks has a program working with giraffes and have had several babies born there. The giraffes are a very popular attraction because you can feed them direct from your hand. Of course I tried to get a close up of me and the giraffe, but they would have nothing to do with me because they knew I was too cheap to pay $2.00 for a couple of pieces of lettuce :) Even without feeding them, I was able to get close enough for some good pictures.

As for the Garden portion of the day...anyone who knows me, knows that I'm not that into gardening, even so I can appreciate the hard work that goes into it. Surprisingly I really enjoyed walking around the gardens. Even though it is November there were still lots of plants and flowers to see. The garden area is designed for all ages, which is in part why I liked it so much. There was a huge sand area with a dinosaur theme, including buried bones as well as a water feature, where kids (we're all kids at heart, right?), could run though the multiple geysers spouting all over the place. I especially liked the vegetable garden and the way in which they had it all planted. Everything was so green and beautiful...at this time of the year there were a great many lettuce varieties, but other things as well.