The Great California Adventure - Pandas, Pandas, Pandas, Pandas, Pandas, Pandas, Pandas, Pandas, Pandas, Pandas!

Sun Bear on the way to Pandas

By a cruel irony of fate I had to wait till the last day of the holiday to see the pandas. San Diego zoo is the only place west of the Missisipi to have Giant Pandas. When Edinburgh ‘got’ Giant Pandas I was going to go there for my 30^th turns out God had other plans.

Snap shot across part of the zoo

At first there was no-one at home in Bai Yun's cage

Bai Yun enjoying some food

I slept most of the 1hr 40 min trip to San Diego to conserve energy for this important day. We got to the zoo about 11am and thanks to Diana and Yongboms forethought had pre-purchased tickets so went straight in. San Diego is a big zoo with a lot of animals. Some of the cages/habitats seems generous, others small. It was a hot day so animals seemed to be either sleeping or pacing, perhaps in wait of food. We took a while to get to the Pandas and then had a 15 min wait to see them. “Bai Yun” (White Clound) is the female and is a bit of a super star. Her daughter Hua Mei has the distinction of being the first panda to survive being born in captivity in the US. Bai Yun has had no less than 6 healthy cubs. Hua Mei is back in China on her 10th cub! I can’t help but think that Bai Yun has some pretty powerful baby survival genes going for her. 

When we first got there we had a good look at her keepers who were busy clearing up and putting out treats and bamboo. Next door is “Gao Gao” (High High) her mate. When we got there he was pacing around, apparently they do this when they are waiting for food. The path looped back around to Bai Yun who started investigating her fresh grub.

Gao Gao pacing

Elephants

Koalas

Tree Kangaroo

After this we went for a bit of a meander around the zoo and saw some Elephants and Koalas before I set off again for the Pandas. This time alone, the waiting time was about 20 mins this time. At this point Bai Yun was busy pacing in anticipation of some more dinner and Gao Gao was having a nap. In the same loop as the Giant Pandas were the Red Pandas - looking just as cute as ever and Takins. They all come from China. 

Gao Gao napping

Bai Yun waiting for dinner

Red Panda chilling out

Finding a comfy position

Takin. It was holding this ridiculously uncomfy position. 

Later in the day the red pandas are still snoozing

Three Llamas obviously posing for a photo*obviously not from china!*

A rather beautiful camel

 Before returning to the Pandas for a third round I met my friends at the polar bear enclosure.

Brave Mallards

local wildlife

Panda enclosure for third time. Even busier.

Bai Yun eating, look at the chubby rolls of fur on her back!

 During my third Panda visit both of them were busy eating bamboo. This time I had to queue for about half an hour. This isn't bad when I think that the first panda in the USA "Su Lin" drew a crowd of 53,000 people when first exhibited at the Brookfield Zoo. After the Pandas I went and tried tOneo spot the bears again. Most were in their caves but the grizzlys had come out to sun bathe. I finished off the day at the zoo by hiking around the gift shops, in every one I found something else I wanted. This included two cuddly pandas (one of which donated it's t-shirt to Jessie), some panda jewellery, a panda magnet, a panda sun hat, a panda photo frame, panda postcards, and a panda decoration for my Christmas tree. I also bought a really interesting book "The Lady and the Panda" which is a re-write of the original book of the name by Ruth Harkness. Ruth Harkness was the first person to bring a Panda out of China to 'the West'. I usually struggle to read factual things (explains a lot about my failings as a scholar) but this is really well written. Even if you are not interested in Pandas (shame on you) it is an interesting tale of an underdog winning, and reflects a little on our attitudes (hopefully now in the past) to both non-westerners and animals. Ruth Harkness was a lady ahead of her time in some respects but she seems to have enjoyed her time nonetheless.

Bai Yun chilling out

Gao Gao in a nest of bamboo

By this point Gao Gao was almost buried in bamboo

Sorry the videos the wrong way around. Gao Gao munching...

Grizzlys finally outside

Jessie sporting her new T-shirt

 After the zoo we went to the beach at San Diego and saw the fancy hotel there. We had Mexican for dinner then headed home. Full of memories of Pandas and other less important animals.

The beach at San Diego

Wading birds

The Great California Adventure - Yosemite

We arrived in Yosemite a bit before 6pm and had a 35 mile journey to Camp Curry where we were staying. It took us an hour or more because of frequent stops for photos and enjoying the scenery. At Camp Curry we upgraded from heated tent cabins to heated wood cabins with indoor bathrooms. This was a step above even glamping but we couldn’t define a new verb for it, the closest we got was lodging but that has other definitions. The cabins were good and with a fold-up bed all of us fitted two. We had an indoor picnic with some Birthday Cake and then it was time for a goodnights sleep.

Inside our cabin

The cabin had a chest of drawers and a bathroom with shower.
Definitely a step above camping. 

View from behind the cabins

Jenny is providing a little scale with the Redwoods and 

Wednesday was my Birthday. I don’t think I have ever worked so hard! We met for a breakfast indoor picnic then headed off to the visitors center to get some advice on walks or ‘hikes’. Most of the waterfall walks were marked as strenuous, which had kind of put us off, but on the advice of the ranger we set off by free shuttle bus to the start of the walk to Vernon Falls. The first part of the walk was up to a 400ft elevation where there was a foot bridge. Having survived that part we decided to continue to the top of Vernon falls up 600+ uneven stone steps to 1000ft. We huffed and puffed our way up, saw some smaller falls and spray rainbows, and eventually reached the top in time for sandwich lunch. We considered continuing up to the next fall but lack of water and restrooms made us decided to climb back down. What we hadn’t banked on was the sore muscles that would stay with us for the rest of the visit.

At the Vernon falls foot bridge

Some of the steps on the way to Vernon falls (the white sheet in the background)

Vernon falls with spray rainbow

View from the top!

Quick sketch of the other direction

The bubbling stream at the bottom of Vernon Falls

Deer

Mirror Lake

After lunch we went a little off route and missed the turning for our next ‘hike’ we found our way back and had a quick 2 mile round trip to see mirror lake. A hop, skip, and shuttle ride later we were at lower Yosemite falls and a 1 mile round trip gave us a nice view of the upper and lower falls and a leg stretch for our tired muscles. Next we returned to the center for dinner. They have a cafeteria style eating place. Pizza, root beer, and coffee with hazelnut creamer made a good birthday meal.  Our penultimate adventure for the day was to travel to bus stop 11 and see the sunset over half dome. We were told to go to the middle of the meadow to get the best view so we stumbled along over hillocks and tall grass. The sunset wasn’t that impressive (that’s the problem with clear skies). But I have photographic proof that half dome turned pink(ish)! On our way back to the bus stop we realised that everyone else had congregated on the nearby bridge, opps. We got back ‘home’ and had a few yummy chocolate fudge snacks. Most of the evening was used up with a prayer session that over ran a little. The evening finished with some star gazing – hurray for my 30^th Birthday!

Lower and Upper Yosemite falls.

Yosemite (we presume) used to be a ‘v’ shaped river valley with lots of rivers joining to form a larger one. Then came the glaciers and the ice carved a ‘u’ shaped valley cutting off the rivers with steep cliffs that form waterfalls. I can’t help that this is a process familiar to many Christians which resonates with me right now. You are happily getting on with life thinking that your little river valley is really quite nice, God comes along and like a glacier cuts off you pretty little river valley and you are falling off the cliff. The things is that the river looks ever so much more beautiful and breath taking as a waterfall.

Half Dome at sunset

The night sky

The cabins on Thursday Morning

The next morning I spent some time wondering around before breakfast and had time to do a sketch of the cabins. We had breakfast and set off for our last hike on the way out of the park. Bridalveil falls was a short walk away. We had time for a few more silly group photos and some bubble blowing with my Birthday bubbles. I considered the impact of my bubbles on the local environment and decided that a few drops of washing up liquid was probably doing less damage that the car oil being spread around by our feet. With that we wound our way out of Yosemite and back West.

People leaving their mark in an environmentally friendly way

This rock nicely demonstrating freeze-thaw weathering

Bridalveil Falls

bubbles!

Driving out of Yosemite