So, yesterday, after I wrote the blog, I decided to go to the zoo. We have a yearly membership, and it expires the end of September, so I want to go as much as I can, assuming I might not be able to budget a membership renewal into the finances. I had to pack my water bottle in a plastic grocery bag, and then I put that in purse. When I stopped along my walk and took the water out to have a drink, I felt self conscious like people were going to think I was drinking hooch.
I am so used to wearing flip flops, that I put them on, thinking they were the best choice for the excursion. I live in Golden Hill, and I totally miscalculated the distance from here to the zoo. I forget how long it is to get up the winding walking path on Zoo Place, and then to cross the street and actually get into the front entrance of the zoo. I thought it was a mile, mile and a half tops. I just now google mapped it. 2.6 miles. It took almost an hour. I am not a walker. I walk to the 7-11 down the street which requires going up and down 2 hills and I think that's an accomplishment.
Anyhoo, getting back to the flip flops. Not the best choice. Okay, they were a better choice than those terribly uncomfortable white mary jane stripper heels that I wore once, but I think it was worse than walking barefoot. I remember my sister walked from the garden district in New Orleans to the Bywater barefoot once. That's like 6 miles. But she was way more of a walker then than I am now. So, my flip flop strap on the inside of my left foot started to chafe on the way there. I was contemplating whether I could stay past dark and splurge on a cab, which I figured would be $5, but now knowing the mileage, I know it would have been closer to $10.
So, I went in and went straight for Big Cat Trail, with a stop at the ring tailed lemurs at the intersection of Front Street and Center Street or somewhere around there. It was after 6, and it looked like the cats may or may not have just had dinner. They were all lazing around bathing themselves. Not too exciting. The snow leopards started pacing, which used to be exciting until the last time we went to the zoo.
That time, all the cats were active. One snow leopard was pacing across the front of the cage, and the other was more erratic. It was hot and I think they were testy. Whenever the one would cross the other's path they would have a spat. The one time the claws came out and they roared at each other it was right in front of me. I was a little scared.
This time, this preteen or young teen girl was complaining to her mom in front of the snow leopard "enclosure". She said she was using too many pictures on the cats, and all they had to offer was drinking water and pacing. Her mom tried to explain to her that they were not circus animals. I wanted to pipe in and say, you should have been here the last time I came! Then this other girl asked how they clean the cage. Her dad explained how they have that smaller cage in the back that they lure them to, and then someone goes in and cleans. So knowledgeable, that dad!
After that, I thought about going to Panda Canyon, as I think the new exhibit is called. I didn't go, because my feet hurt, and I thought it would be special to share that experience for the first time with the FP. So, I headed back up to the Elephant Odyssey. I don't really pay much attention to the elephants. There are way more and they seem much happier at the Wild Animal Park, one of the few things there that are really exciting. Whenever we go there, we barely see any animals.
So, I got to the one area where there are guanacos, capybaras, and ducks. I was focused on the ducks, because the last time we went there was a mama duck with about 10 teeny baby duckies. They were so small and cute! So, I was looking for them in the water. On the higher side of the waterfall I saw regular sized ducks, but no babies. So, I don't know if they moved them to another exhibit or what. There were capybaras though, swimming and frolicking in the water. That was cute. There were like four or five of them, and they were playing like otters, of course not as graceful in the water as otters.
One went to the bottom of the falls and was using the falls like a whirlpool jet on it's butt. I had never paid these guys much attention before, but for the moment they were the most exciting thing I'd seen.
I progressed to the Jaguar, who was pacing in that front area like always. It's sad, because he's so pretty, yet so unhappy. The lionness next door was sitting in the small partition of the enclosure, facing the glass. Just sitting. Everyone was going right up to her, and she didn't bat an eyelash. One family had a discussion about how maybe it was a one way glass and she couldn't see us. People at the zoo have such dumb conversations and sound like morons, no offense. I know the FP and I have had dumb conversations that someone overheard and thought we were dumb. Can I say dumb anymore, anyway? Or is there a more PC term I should be using, Forrest Gumplike?
Anyway, the male lion was chillin out in the very back of the big enclosure. Much of a letdown after the last zoo visit, which was to be expected. Last time, the male was pacing the whole length of the front of the enclosure, and as he was heading toward me, he would be staring me in the eyes. He didn't just do it to me, but he would do it to everyone standing in front of him. That was an experience quite like nothing I've ever experienced before. Meanwhile, while he was pacing, the female was in that smaller enclosure area, pounding on the reinforced steel wall (hopefully that's what it was) that used to be a door leading to the jaguar enclosure. I mean she was using all her might trying to get in, alternating between pounding and scratching. When she pounded, I could feel the ground shake, when she scratched it made this horrible metal reverberation. The jaguar seemed to alternate between scared shitless and curious. He kept running in and out looking at that steel wall. That was something else.
So, the sun was getting low, and I had to make a decision. Did I walk around more and catch better action as the sun went down, and splurge on a cab? Or did I leave right then and try to make it up 26th street before the sun set? I took the cheap and painful way out and headed to the exit. As I was walking down the cactus walk, I realized the sun was setting fast, so I started walking faster, even though it was killing my feet. It was dark dusk by the time I got to that wooded part of the path on 26th street, going uphill. But there were still people running, so I wasn't too freaked out. Ever since we first moved to San Diego, and I realized that people live all around the canyons of Balboa Park, I've been scared to be anywhere wooded and hidden in the park after dark, especially after dark. I had this vision that if I didn't make it past that point before dark, a transient would grab me off the path and drag me into his lair and mug, rape me and make me cuddle afterwards with his stinky dirty flesh if he didn't decide to kill me.
Obviously, that didn't happen. I made it home. 5.2 miles to and from the zoo. I can't really estimate how much I walked in the zoo, but let's just call it .8 and say I walked 6 miles yesterday in my shitty nonsupportive flip flops.
Today, it hurts to walk barefoot on the tile in the apartment, and my ankles are the part of my legs that hurt the most. If I ever do this again, I have to remember to wear my Nikes.
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