Em riding the giant rhino

Who knew there were hobbits in the SD Wild Animal Park?

The hobbit emerges from a tree. Oh wait... That's not a hobbit, it's Emily.

The Lorax would be proud

Emily discovers a Truffula Tree.

A Pig of Beauty is a Joy Forever

I couldn't have said it better myself.

Pigs and piglets

Although you can't really see it from this picture, there was a mother pig with about 4 or 5 babies trotting along behind her. They were SO cute that Em wanted to take one home. (But they were a bit... smelly.)

What a life

Lemurs really have it good. I wish I could be a Lemur. Hey, wait, maybe I already am!

Elephant backsides

Sorry viewers -- I would have liked to get the fronts of the elephants, but it didn't work out.

Ring Tailed Lemur

I think this was Mark's favorite animal - the Ring Tailed Lemur. They are really cute and acrobatic.

A picture's worth a thousand words

Pelican

This is a pelican. It really should do something about that double chin.
Actually, he was frantically waving his saggy chin trying to get attention from the female pelicans.

From the train

We took a train that drove us through the wild animal enclosures that are designed to mimic Africa. In this picture is the tallest giraffe in the park - almost 19 feet tall - and one of the rarest rhinos around. I think they said that there are only 4 male rhinos of this sort left in the world. They are actually trying to do artificial insemination with the remaining females to try to prevent that species from dying out.

Giraffe

We got some great views of animals when we took the train through the animal enclosures.

Reminds me of Queens... or the South Shore

Flamingo island

Animals of some sort

On the tram. They drive you through the animals. It's a great way to see them, PLUS, it was really hot and we were exhausted... so it was also a good way to sit down.

Pink Flamingos

Pink flamingos at the SD wild animal park.

Mark's old house

We're taking the memory lane tour of CA. This is where Mark used to live.

We got up this morning and went to our favorite west coast bagel joint - Einsteins. Then Blake met us and we took a drive to see Mark's former home (pictured above). At some point we detoured to a big shopping center where I got to go into the biggest Sur La Table I've ever seen. The store even had a kitchen where they gave cooking classes. I found a beautiful teapot for $10, but I didn't get it because it would have been too hard to get home. :(

After our trip through Mark's former life, we headed out to the San Diego Wild Animal Park.

In case you go to San Diego

I totally recommend eating here. It's called 3rd Corner and it's in Ocean Beach. The food and ambiance were great and we liked everything about it (except the bill, but what can you do).

Mark and Em are already sound asleep, and it's time for me to hit the sack as well. Tomorrow we're off the the SD Wild Animal Park.

Mark's plate of pits

As a comparison... here is Mark's plate of olive pits. Now I know at this point you're starting to wonder how many pictures of olive pits I'm going to put on my vacation blog. You'll be relieved to know that this was it. :)

The food here was marvelous. I had a salad with marinated tomatoes, olives and a basil vinaigrette and a chicken sandwich with tomato tapenade and pesto (and incredibly thin pomme frites - aka french fries to you uncivilized people). The rest of our party all had the pasta dish, which apparently was very good as well.

I'm so full now that I feel like I'm going to give birth to a chicken sandwich.

Emily's plate of pits

To give you an idea of how many olives Emily ate....

Two minutes later

This is our olive sampler two minutes after it had been placed near Emily.