Not too sure if the last line makes it better or worse!
Snowleopard's 2017 Road Trip
- Thread starter snowleopard
- Start date
Not too sure if the last line makes it better or worse!
DAY 14: Friday, July 14th
Here are 5 paragraphs talking about my life on the road, before I start reviewing the 4 zoos that I saw today. If you are interested, then please read on…but if not then skip to the reviews.
Today was a day with 4 more zoos but first I’m going to address the “sleeping in my minivan” conversation that many people commented on earlier in the thread and I’m only now getting around to discussing. I’ve been too busy! My very good friend Allen Nyhuis hit the nail on the head when he talked about “greater love, money and marriage” several days ago. While I’ve been gallivanting around the USA, my lovely wife Debbie has been watching 4 young children aged 2, 4, 6 and almost 8. I know that when two of us are home there are moments of quiet bliss and then many hours of changing diapers for the little one, getting woken up in the middle of the night because someone is thirsty, kids wanting food, toys and non-stop, constant attention. Even though we have a large house, the little kids follow us around all day long and anyone who has young children is fully aware that when you either make a phone call or are in the bathroom then that is the exact moment when they are all tugging at your legs or banging on the door. It is hectic and chaotic for much of the day. Debbie is an amazing mother to the kids and she is willing to do much more with them than I ever do. I won’t take out the bins of Play-Doh at home because the kids make a magnificent mess, but Debbie will let them have a blast. Since it is summer they are outside for a good chunk of the day, which means that when they all come in at 4:00 then Debbie has 3 solid hours of helping clean up the yard, herding them all indoors, bathing two of them at a time as all 4 in the tub at once doesn’t work any longer, and then after she just about hits the point of exhaustion for the day then it is time to make dinner for the army and do the whole bed-time routine. Then she hits REPEAT for 17 days in a row while I’m alone in California feeding hippos and strolling through a long list of zoos and aquariums.
If I was a single guy then I’d stay in a motel every night and probably have a few expensive meals just to splurge, but I’d perish of guilt if I attempted that on any of these “Snowleopard Road Trips”. There is a nice, fat mortgage payment to consider, an endless stream of visits to grocery stores to feed the growing brood, and since we both work full-time as teachers then there is $10,000 each year just in child-care (daycare) expenses. Just a few months ago we bought a brand-new KIA Sedona 2017 minivan (8-seater) and so we’ve now got car payments for many years to come. However, the vehicle had practically zero miles on it and we drove it right off the lot and it has been wonderful. I’m driving a Dodge Grand Caravan 2007 minivan (7-seater), with 260,000 km (162,000 miles) on the odometer but owning two minivans means that either Debbie or I can pick up combinations of our children (including their friends) at daycare, preschool, regular school or events in either vehicle and it has given us a lot of freedom in comparison to a minivan and just a regular car.
Anyway, Debbie’s at home with the brand-new minivan and 4 little monkeys while I’m on the road with the decade-old but still reliable minivan. All of the seats stay inside the vehicle but they ingeniously fold down into the floorboards within seconds so that other than the driver’s seat and passenger seat the whole rest of the van is flat. I have a nine-inch-thick, six-foot long mattress that fits into the van and with a pillow and sheets it is a regular bed! I park in shopping mall lots, or big “box stores” like Home Depot, Target and Wal-Mart and to be honest I’ve had really good sleeps almost every night. There isn’t the banging of doors that is to be found in motels and the amount of money that I’ve saved has been extraordinary. I’ll probably spend 5 nights in motels on this trip and 12 nights in the back of the minivan in my little bedroom and in terms of Canadian dollars I’ll easily save $1,500. Adding in the free tickets that I received in the mail for San Diego Zoo and San Diego Zoo Safari Park (from @DAVID Brown), the free admission to San Diego Zoo on my second visit, plus Cat Haven and Fresno Chaffee Zoo (all courtesy of @Arizona Docent) and then the free admission to Los Angeles Zoo (courtesy of zookeeper @mstickmanp) then that is another $150 Canadian in savings to major, expensive zoos.
I have zero issues with sleeping on a full-size mattress in the back of the minivan, with many comfortable nights and only once waking up boiling hot on an especially humid night. I’ve even washed all the sheets at a laundromat, just as I would if I were at home! On this trip locating a shower has been a major concern as sometimes I’m sticky and sweaty from a day’s zoo adventures. One solution is something that my wife Debbie came up with and on a few occasions I’ve dropped by a local gym/fitness center and paid the drop-in fee (usually $9 US) and gone inside and had a private shower, brushed my teeth and come out smelling wonderful…much better than the Maned Wolf/Binturong scent that I must have had upon my arrival. Then, all nice and clean, I head to a local McDonald’s via my GPS and sit in an air-conditioned building with fast, speedy internet while I type up this blog. When it gets dark outside I find a parking lot and sleep 7 hours each night, waking up clean and refreshed and saving money in the process. If I was immensely rich it would be motels all the way, but with a big family and watching expenses then the minivan bed is working out just fine.
One more thing that I want to mention is the crazy prices of motels in the USA. Debbie and I never really track our finances unless we are travelling, as on vacation the urge to splurge is quite common. Back in 2008, pre-kids, we would stay in ultra-cheap motels and I can recall spending $35 per night for several places near Joshua Tree National Park in southern California. We would rarely spend more than $50 per night and we’d drive around until we located a $50 room. We still traveled extensively when we had 2 kids and by then we required a microwave, a mini-fridge and a half-decent establishment and we were spending $75-100 per night. Now that we have 4 kids I’m going to many zoos alone and the motel prices have become outrageous, not being helped by the exchange rate. In the past the Canadian dollar and US dollar were on par, dead even. Now I checked into a motel the other day that cost $100 US and therefore $130 Canadian and the internet didn’t work, the bathroom was nasty and the neighbours were loud. I missed my minivan bedroom and I was paying $130 Canadian for a junky motel room! Even for a single guy, finding a motel that is less than $110 Canadian is almost impossible in southern California and about 20 minutes from the Los Angeles Zoo the motels were all $200 Canadian per night. I think that I’ll stick to paying $9 US for a shower, or not shower at all, then a $10 McDonald’s meal and a free bed in the van.
Zoo/Aquarium #37: Natural History Museum of Los Angeles
Exposition Park in Los Angeles is an area with several attractions and this morning I visited two of them: Natural History Museum and California Science Center. The museum is an imposing sight from outside, with 35 million specimens (many stored off-show) and a claim to being the largest natural history museum in the western USA. The museum opened in 1913 but has undergone several renovations in recent history, the biggest boost being 2011’s Dinosaur Hall. From a zoo enthusiast’s perspective, and setting aside shells, gemstones and the like, there are some terrific dioramas in an African Mammal Hall, a pair of North American Mammal Halls (on separate levels), a Dinosaur Hall, an Age of Mammals Hall, a Discovery Center & Insect Zoo, a Nature Lab and a sprawling Bird Hall with a few hundred taxonomic specimens.
The downside to my visit is that this museum is not nearly as impressive as similar buildings in New York City and Washington, D.C., and some areas are outdated. The entire Bird Hall looks very old, with badly stained carpets and antiquated graphics, even with some rare specimens displayed: Galapagos Penguin, Secretary Bird, Whooping Crane, Sandhill Crane, California Condor, Greater Bird-of-Paradise, Black-Footed Albatross, Laysan Albatross and Great Frigatebird. However, after seeing so many zoos over the years, the static dioramas have never held the same appeal for me as I’ve gotten older.
The museum’s Insect Zoo consists of 9 small terrariums in one corner of an enormous room piled with all sorts of odds n’ ends and countless more taxidermy specimens. The heavily advertised Butterfly Pavilion, costing an additional $5, is surely the smallest of its kind in the nation. The temporary special exhibit is Extreme Mammals, also an additional $5 charge, which is a short but interesting loop with a full-size model of an Indricotherium and other cool-looking animals with “extreme” features. The best part of the museum is of course the newest section, as is so often the case, and Nature Lab opened in 2013. It is modern, sleek, interactive and contains half the animals within the facility.
Species List (21 species + butterflies): Domestic Rat, Western Pond Turtle, Red-Eared Slider, Southern Pacific Rattlesnake, Gopher Snake, Mediterranean House Gecko, American Bullfrog, California Newt, Crayfish, Chilean Rose-Hair Tarantula, Greenbottle Blue Tarantula, Black Widow Spider, Brown Widow Spider, Desert Wolf Spider, Desert Hairy Scorpion, Giant Whipscorpion, Texas Millipede, Pill Bug, California Mantis, Desert Ironclad Beetle, California Harvester Ant and a variety of butterflies.
Zoo/Aquarium #38: California Science Center
This place is actually an AZA-accredited aquarium inside Exposition Park (and almost touching the Natural History Museum) and was jam-packed to the rafters during my visit. The reason for the influx of visitors is two-fold: the center is free to the public except for a minor additional charge to view the space shuttle Endeavour. In the first 4 months after the shuttle arrived in 2013 the California Science Center had an incredible one million visitors and I certainly battled the crowds during my truncated visit. I did not see the space shuttle due to my lack of interest and crowds lining up from Los Angeles to Timbuktu. I also did not pay an admission fee to view the Body Works exhibit as I’ve seen it before and so it was very odd to just walk into this free establishment and no one stopped me or talked to me as I strolled through the facility. Being free to the public is truly a colossal mistake in my humble opinion, as the crowds on a Friday morning were insane and I cannot even imagine what weekends are like because there were signs telling people to avoid the crowds on Saturdays and Sundays. The facility should charge a low rate of $10 so that attendance drops and congestion eases in the halls.
Another major flaw, besides flinging the doors open to the masses, is the layout of the three floors. There aren’t any loops and so for example 100 people pour into the Island Zone section of the Ecosystems area and at the same time 100 people are coming back out like salmon fighting a fierce stream. Ecosystems is essentially the aquarium within the bowls of the Science Center but the Island Zone, Rocky Shore, Touch Tank Area, Poles, Desert, Deep Sea Vent, Global Room and River Zone makes 8 areas where visitors go into a room and look around and then come back out the exact same passage. Imagine the chaos and confusion of the non-paying populace of downtown Los Angeles all either cramming themselves into or out of a single 9-foot wide doorway. Anyone that is even remotely claustrophobic is probably tossed into the space shuttle’s holding cargo and left for dead.
The facility is home to a world-class Kelp Forest tank that is not quite as impressive as the staggering achievement at Monterey Bay Aquarium but the same basic principle applies here. There is a seating area so that visitors can enjoy the waving forest and watch the fish cruise through the depths. Best of all, as it is so rarely showcased, is the ability to go to the next level and look down at the top of the huge tank. I stood there for 5-10 minutes just watching the water surge up and down as if I was gazing at real ocean waves. A magnificent habitat that made all the hassle worthwhile, and the second great exhibit at this establishment is the Flash Flood. I’ve seen this one before, at Denver Downtown Aquarium, and against a desert, mock-rock backdrop there is a trickle of water that surges into a flood and comes crashing down into the pool…with some of the water splashing over the sides of the glass and soaking little kids. There are at least 15 more aquatic tanks scattered around Ecosystems and even one in the fantastic gift shop, but the species list is noting too exciting. A future addition to the Ecosystems zone is a Southeast Asian Rainforest with gibbons, langurs, otters, water monitors and various birds. Between the museum and the aquarium, I spent a combined 4 hours in the two facilities.
Zoo/Aquarium #39: Wildlife Learning Center
I drove about 45 minutes north of Los Angeles to the city of Sylmar, home to Wildlife Learning Center. This small zoo is so tiny that patrons have to park on the street of the surrounding neighbourhood! There is a large, air-conditioned trailer that serves as the admission booth and puny gift shop, and then another trailer has 33 terrariums filled with the usual suspects of Bearded Dragons, Leopard Geckos and a squished Reticulated Python in a small exhibit. The zoo really promotes “interactive animal experiences” for groups of 1-4 people, which means $25 to meet an armadillo, $40 to go in with a North American Porcupine (watch those quills!), $125 to go in the Eurasian Lynx exhibit and petting a Fennec Fox will set you back $40 for your group of zoo nerd friends.
Aside from the 33 terrariums in the pseudo “Reptile House”, there is a short loop with many chain-link enclosures that offer up minimal accommodation. The entire Species List (20 species): Eurasian Lynx, Bobcat, Serval, Red Fox, Grey Fox, Arctic Fox, Fennec Fox, North American Porcupine, Lowland Paca, Two-Toed Sloth, Kinkajou, Black-Tailed Prairie Dog, Ring-Tailed Lemur, Common Squirrel Monkey, Bald Eagle, Tawny Owl, Western Screech Owl, Blue-and-Yellow Macaw, American Alligator and African Spurred Tortoise.
Spending 45 minutes at this small zoo was plenty of time, and just as I was scratching my head and pondering how on earth the facility obtained species such as Arctic Fox, Tawny Owl and Lowland Paca, a giraffe walked past the back of some of the enclosures. What the heck? As it turns out, the zoo does not own the giraffe but there is also a zebra, a couple of ostriches and several horses on the neighbouring farm. You guessed it, there is a possibility to also meet the giraffe for the cool sum of $60.
Zoo/Aquarium #40: Forever Wild Exotic Animal Sanctuary
About an hour and a half east of Los Angeles is this obscure “sanctuary” that is located in the city of Phelan. I never know what to expect at these small zoos and sure enough there was an extremely alert Black Mamba at this one! Throw in 5 different species of cobra and 10 species of rattlesnake and the reptile collection was surprisingly dangerous. Driving out of the smog and incessant battle with Los Angeles traffic was a delight as I headed into the surrounding hills and headed east. Without my GPS I would never have found this facility as the main road turns onto a mile-long, sandy, dirty, bumpy road and there is no sign whatsoever to indicate that a zoo is on the horizon. Driving along at a snail’s pace, teeth chattering due to the jolts to my minivan’s suspension, wondering if I was even going in the right direction, I again remarked at how many out-of-the-way little places I’ve visited over the years. Pulling up to the main building, I noticed rows of chain-link cages surrounding the property. This establishment takes in unwanted animals, exotic pets that have grown too ferocious and all sorts of odds and ends.
The zoo actually produces a colourful map which they loan to visitors (although I was allowed one copy to take home for my collection of 1,500 zoo maps) and I headed out to the Carnivore section. Here is a single African Lion in a small, chain-link home, two Cougars, at least 9 tigers (including a white one), two black leopards, 5 Bobcats and at least 6 Servals. There is also an American Black Bear, 5-6 Raccoons all together in one of the better cages, and some capuchins. None of the enclosures are adequate for the cats, although the facility is short on cash and due to its crazy location I’m sure they are lacking visitors as well.
The second part of the outdoor area has the following species: Llama, Domestic Horse, Ring-Tailed Lemur, Kinkajou, Domestic Ferret, New Guinea Singing Dog, Red Fox, Red-Tailed Hawk, Great Horned Owl, American Kestrel, American Snapping Turtle, Russian Tortoise and a few macaws. The main building/gift shop/learning center has several cages with a variety of parrots, plus a juvenile American Alligator and then the following species: Sugar Glider, Hedgehog, Two-Toed Sloth, Black Mamba, East African Green Mamba, Gaboon Viper, King Cobra, Red Spitting Cobra, Indochinese Spitting Cobra, Cape Cobra, Spectacled Cobra, Puff Adder, Neotropical Rattlesnake, Banded Rock Rattlesnake, Northern Mojave Rattlesnake, Southern Pacific Rattlesnake, Canebrake Rattlesnake, Red Diamond Rattlesnake, Panamint Rattlesnake, Ridge-Nosed Rattlesnake, Eastern Diamondback Rattlesnake, Western Diamondback Rattlesnake, California Mountain Kingsnake, California Kingsnake, Great Basin Gopher Snake, Rosy Boa, Rio Fuerte Beaded Lizard, Gila Monster, Red Tegu, Bearded Dragon and Rose-Hair Tarantula.
Here are 5 paragraphs talking about my life on the road, before I start reviewing the 4 zoos that I saw today. If you are interested, then please read on…but if not then skip to the reviews.
Today was a day with 4 more zoos but first I’m going to address the “sleeping in my minivan” conversation that many people commented on earlier in the thread and I’m only now getting around to discussing. I’ve been too busy! My very good friend Allen Nyhuis hit the nail on the head when he talked about “greater love, money and marriage” several days ago. While I’ve been gallivanting around the USA, my lovely wife Debbie has been watching 4 young children aged 2, 4, 6 and almost 8. I know that when two of us are home there are moments of quiet bliss and then many hours of changing diapers for the little one, getting woken up in the middle of the night because someone is thirsty, kids wanting food, toys and non-stop, constant attention. Even though we have a large house, the little kids follow us around all day long and anyone who has young children is fully aware that when you either make a phone call or are in the bathroom then that is the exact moment when they are all tugging at your legs or banging on the door. It is hectic and chaotic for much of the day. Debbie is an amazing mother to the kids and she is willing to do much more with them than I ever do. I won’t take out the bins of Play-Doh at home because the kids make a magnificent mess, but Debbie will let them have a blast. Since it is summer they are outside for a good chunk of the day, which means that when they all come in at 4:00 then Debbie has 3 solid hours of helping clean up the yard, herding them all indoors, bathing two of them at a time as all 4 in the tub at once doesn’t work any longer, and then after she just about hits the point of exhaustion for the day then it is time to make dinner for the army and do the whole bed-time routine. Then she hits REPEAT for 17 days in a row while I’m alone in California feeding hippos and strolling through a long list of zoos and aquariums.
If I was a single guy then I’d stay in a motel every night and probably have a few expensive meals just to splurge, but I’d perish of guilt if I attempted that on any of these “Snowleopard Road Trips”. There is a nice, fat mortgage payment to consider, an endless stream of visits to grocery stores to feed the growing brood, and since we both work full-time as teachers then there is $10,000 each year just in child-care (daycare) expenses. Just a few months ago we bought a brand-new KIA Sedona 2017 minivan (8-seater) and so we’ve now got car payments for many years to come. However, the vehicle had practically zero miles on it and we drove it right off the lot and it has been wonderful. I’m driving a Dodge Grand Caravan 2007 minivan (7-seater), with 260,000 km (162,000 miles) on the odometer but owning two minivans means that either Debbie or I can pick up combinations of our children (including their friends) at daycare, preschool, regular school or events in either vehicle and it has given us a lot of freedom in comparison to a minivan and just a regular car.
Anyway, Debbie’s at home with the brand-new minivan and 4 little monkeys while I’m on the road with the decade-old but still reliable minivan. All of the seats stay inside the vehicle but they ingeniously fold down into the floorboards within seconds so that other than the driver’s seat and passenger seat the whole rest of the van is flat. I have a nine-inch-thick, six-foot long mattress that fits into the van and with a pillow and sheets it is a regular bed! I park in shopping mall lots, or big “box stores” like Home Depot, Target and Wal-Mart and to be honest I’ve had really good sleeps almost every night. There isn’t the banging of doors that is to be found in motels and the amount of money that I’ve saved has been extraordinary. I’ll probably spend 5 nights in motels on this trip and 12 nights in the back of the minivan in my little bedroom and in terms of Canadian dollars I’ll easily save $1,500. Adding in the free tickets that I received in the mail for San Diego Zoo and San Diego Zoo Safari Park (from @DAVID Brown), the free admission to San Diego Zoo on my second visit, plus Cat Haven and Fresno Chaffee Zoo (all courtesy of @Arizona Docent) and then the free admission to Los Angeles Zoo (courtesy of zookeeper @mstickmanp) then that is another $150 Canadian in savings to major, expensive zoos.
I have zero issues with sleeping on a full-size mattress in the back of the minivan, with many comfortable nights and only once waking up boiling hot on an especially humid night. I’ve even washed all the sheets at a laundromat, just as I would if I were at home! On this trip locating a shower has been a major concern as sometimes I’m sticky and sweaty from a day’s zoo adventures. One solution is something that my wife Debbie came up with and on a few occasions I’ve dropped by a local gym/fitness center and paid the drop-in fee (usually $9 US) and gone inside and had a private shower, brushed my teeth and come out smelling wonderful…much better than the Maned Wolf/Binturong scent that I must have had upon my arrival. Then, all nice and clean, I head to a local McDonald’s via my GPS and sit in an air-conditioned building with fast, speedy internet while I type up this blog. When it gets dark outside I find a parking lot and sleep 7 hours each night, waking up clean and refreshed and saving money in the process. If I was immensely rich it would be motels all the way, but with a big family and watching expenses then the minivan bed is working out just fine.
One more thing that I want to mention is the crazy prices of motels in the USA. Debbie and I never really track our finances unless we are travelling, as on vacation the urge to splurge is quite common. Back in 2008, pre-kids, we would stay in ultra-cheap motels and I can recall spending $35 per night for several places near Joshua Tree National Park in southern California. We would rarely spend more than $50 per night and we’d drive around until we located a $50 room. We still traveled extensively when we had 2 kids and by then we required a microwave, a mini-fridge and a half-decent establishment and we were spending $75-100 per night. Now that we have 4 kids I’m going to many zoos alone and the motel prices have become outrageous, not being helped by the exchange rate. In the past the Canadian dollar and US dollar were on par, dead even. Now I checked into a motel the other day that cost $100 US and therefore $130 Canadian and the internet didn’t work, the bathroom was nasty and the neighbours were loud. I missed my minivan bedroom and I was paying $130 Canadian for a junky motel room! Even for a single guy, finding a motel that is less than $110 Canadian is almost impossible in southern California and about 20 minutes from the Los Angeles Zoo the motels were all $200 Canadian per night. I think that I’ll stick to paying $9 US for a shower, or not shower at all, then a $10 McDonald’s meal and a free bed in the van.
Zoo/Aquarium #37: Natural History Museum of Los Angeles
Exposition Park in Los Angeles is an area with several attractions and this morning I visited two of them: Natural History Museum and California Science Center. The museum is an imposing sight from outside, with 35 million specimens (many stored off-show) and a claim to being the largest natural history museum in the western USA. The museum opened in 1913 but has undergone several renovations in recent history, the biggest boost being 2011’s Dinosaur Hall. From a zoo enthusiast’s perspective, and setting aside shells, gemstones and the like, there are some terrific dioramas in an African Mammal Hall, a pair of North American Mammal Halls (on separate levels), a Dinosaur Hall, an Age of Mammals Hall, a Discovery Center & Insect Zoo, a Nature Lab and a sprawling Bird Hall with a few hundred taxonomic specimens.
The downside to my visit is that this museum is not nearly as impressive as similar buildings in New York City and Washington, D.C., and some areas are outdated. The entire Bird Hall looks very old, with badly stained carpets and antiquated graphics, even with some rare specimens displayed: Galapagos Penguin, Secretary Bird, Whooping Crane, Sandhill Crane, California Condor, Greater Bird-of-Paradise, Black-Footed Albatross, Laysan Albatross and Great Frigatebird. However, after seeing so many zoos over the years, the static dioramas have never held the same appeal for me as I’ve gotten older.
The museum’s Insect Zoo consists of 9 small terrariums in one corner of an enormous room piled with all sorts of odds n’ ends and countless more taxidermy specimens. The heavily advertised Butterfly Pavilion, costing an additional $5, is surely the smallest of its kind in the nation. The temporary special exhibit is Extreme Mammals, also an additional $5 charge, which is a short but interesting loop with a full-size model of an Indricotherium and other cool-looking animals with “extreme” features. The best part of the museum is of course the newest section, as is so often the case, and Nature Lab opened in 2013. It is modern, sleek, interactive and contains half the animals within the facility.
Species List (21 species + butterflies): Domestic Rat, Western Pond Turtle, Red-Eared Slider, Southern Pacific Rattlesnake, Gopher Snake, Mediterranean House Gecko, American Bullfrog, California Newt, Crayfish, Chilean Rose-Hair Tarantula, Greenbottle Blue Tarantula, Black Widow Spider, Brown Widow Spider, Desert Wolf Spider, Desert Hairy Scorpion, Giant Whipscorpion, Texas Millipede, Pill Bug, California Mantis, Desert Ironclad Beetle, California Harvester Ant and a variety of butterflies.
Zoo/Aquarium #38: California Science Center
This place is actually an AZA-accredited aquarium inside Exposition Park (and almost touching the Natural History Museum) and was jam-packed to the rafters during my visit. The reason for the influx of visitors is two-fold: the center is free to the public except for a minor additional charge to view the space shuttle Endeavour. In the first 4 months after the shuttle arrived in 2013 the California Science Center had an incredible one million visitors and I certainly battled the crowds during my truncated visit. I did not see the space shuttle due to my lack of interest and crowds lining up from Los Angeles to Timbuktu. I also did not pay an admission fee to view the Body Works exhibit as I’ve seen it before and so it was very odd to just walk into this free establishment and no one stopped me or talked to me as I strolled through the facility. Being free to the public is truly a colossal mistake in my humble opinion, as the crowds on a Friday morning were insane and I cannot even imagine what weekends are like because there were signs telling people to avoid the crowds on Saturdays and Sundays. The facility should charge a low rate of $10 so that attendance drops and congestion eases in the halls.
Another major flaw, besides flinging the doors open to the masses, is the layout of the three floors. There aren’t any loops and so for example 100 people pour into the Island Zone section of the Ecosystems area and at the same time 100 people are coming back out like salmon fighting a fierce stream. Ecosystems is essentially the aquarium within the bowls of the Science Center but the Island Zone, Rocky Shore, Touch Tank Area, Poles, Desert, Deep Sea Vent, Global Room and River Zone makes 8 areas where visitors go into a room and look around and then come back out the exact same passage. Imagine the chaos and confusion of the non-paying populace of downtown Los Angeles all either cramming themselves into or out of a single 9-foot wide doorway. Anyone that is even remotely claustrophobic is probably tossed into the space shuttle’s holding cargo and left for dead.
The facility is home to a world-class Kelp Forest tank that is not quite as impressive as the staggering achievement at Monterey Bay Aquarium but the same basic principle applies here. There is a seating area so that visitors can enjoy the waving forest and watch the fish cruise through the depths. Best of all, as it is so rarely showcased, is the ability to go to the next level and look down at the top of the huge tank. I stood there for 5-10 minutes just watching the water surge up and down as if I was gazing at real ocean waves. A magnificent habitat that made all the hassle worthwhile, and the second great exhibit at this establishment is the Flash Flood. I’ve seen this one before, at Denver Downtown Aquarium, and against a desert, mock-rock backdrop there is a trickle of water that surges into a flood and comes crashing down into the pool…with some of the water splashing over the sides of the glass and soaking little kids. There are at least 15 more aquatic tanks scattered around Ecosystems and even one in the fantastic gift shop, but the species list is noting too exciting. A future addition to the Ecosystems zone is a Southeast Asian Rainforest with gibbons, langurs, otters, water monitors and various birds. Between the museum and the aquarium, I spent a combined 4 hours in the two facilities.
Zoo/Aquarium #39: Wildlife Learning Center
I drove about 45 minutes north of Los Angeles to the city of Sylmar, home to Wildlife Learning Center. This small zoo is so tiny that patrons have to park on the street of the surrounding neighbourhood! There is a large, air-conditioned trailer that serves as the admission booth and puny gift shop, and then another trailer has 33 terrariums filled with the usual suspects of Bearded Dragons, Leopard Geckos and a squished Reticulated Python in a small exhibit. The zoo really promotes “interactive animal experiences” for groups of 1-4 people, which means $25 to meet an armadillo, $40 to go in with a North American Porcupine (watch those quills!), $125 to go in the Eurasian Lynx exhibit and petting a Fennec Fox will set you back $40 for your group of zoo nerd friends.
Aside from the 33 terrariums in the pseudo “Reptile House”, there is a short loop with many chain-link enclosures that offer up minimal accommodation. The entire Species List (20 species): Eurasian Lynx, Bobcat, Serval, Red Fox, Grey Fox, Arctic Fox, Fennec Fox, North American Porcupine, Lowland Paca, Two-Toed Sloth, Kinkajou, Black-Tailed Prairie Dog, Ring-Tailed Lemur, Common Squirrel Monkey, Bald Eagle, Tawny Owl, Western Screech Owl, Blue-and-Yellow Macaw, American Alligator and African Spurred Tortoise.
Spending 45 minutes at this small zoo was plenty of time, and just as I was scratching my head and pondering how on earth the facility obtained species such as Arctic Fox, Tawny Owl and Lowland Paca, a giraffe walked past the back of some of the enclosures. What the heck? As it turns out, the zoo does not own the giraffe but there is also a zebra, a couple of ostriches and several horses on the neighbouring farm. You guessed it, there is a possibility to also meet the giraffe for the cool sum of $60.
Zoo/Aquarium #40: Forever Wild Exotic Animal Sanctuary
About an hour and a half east of Los Angeles is this obscure “sanctuary” that is located in the city of Phelan. I never know what to expect at these small zoos and sure enough there was an extremely alert Black Mamba at this one! Throw in 5 different species of cobra and 10 species of rattlesnake and the reptile collection was surprisingly dangerous. Driving out of the smog and incessant battle with Los Angeles traffic was a delight as I headed into the surrounding hills and headed east. Without my GPS I would never have found this facility as the main road turns onto a mile-long, sandy, dirty, bumpy road and there is no sign whatsoever to indicate that a zoo is on the horizon. Driving along at a snail’s pace, teeth chattering due to the jolts to my minivan’s suspension, wondering if I was even going in the right direction, I again remarked at how many out-of-the-way little places I’ve visited over the years. Pulling up to the main building, I noticed rows of chain-link cages surrounding the property. This establishment takes in unwanted animals, exotic pets that have grown too ferocious and all sorts of odds and ends.
The zoo actually produces a colourful map which they loan to visitors (although I was allowed one copy to take home for my collection of 1,500 zoo maps) and I headed out to the Carnivore section. Here is a single African Lion in a small, chain-link home, two Cougars, at least 9 tigers (including a white one), two black leopards, 5 Bobcats and at least 6 Servals. There is also an American Black Bear, 5-6 Raccoons all together in one of the better cages, and some capuchins. None of the enclosures are adequate for the cats, although the facility is short on cash and due to its crazy location I’m sure they are lacking visitors as well.
The second part of the outdoor area has the following species: Llama, Domestic Horse, Ring-Tailed Lemur, Kinkajou, Domestic Ferret, New Guinea Singing Dog, Red Fox, Red-Tailed Hawk, Great Horned Owl, American Kestrel, American Snapping Turtle, Russian Tortoise and a few macaws. The main building/gift shop/learning center has several cages with a variety of parrots, plus a juvenile American Alligator and then the following species: Sugar Glider, Hedgehog, Two-Toed Sloth, Black Mamba, East African Green Mamba, Gaboon Viper, King Cobra, Red Spitting Cobra, Indochinese Spitting Cobra, Cape Cobra, Spectacled Cobra, Puff Adder, Neotropical Rattlesnake, Banded Rock Rattlesnake, Northern Mojave Rattlesnake, Southern Pacific Rattlesnake, Canebrake Rattlesnake, Red Diamond Rattlesnake, Panamint Rattlesnake, Ridge-Nosed Rattlesnake, Eastern Diamondback Rattlesnake, Western Diamondback Rattlesnake, California Mountain Kingsnake, California Kingsnake, Great Basin Gopher Snake, Rosy Boa, Rio Fuerte Beaded Lizard, Gila Monster, Red Tegu, Bearded Dragon and Rose-Hair Tarantula.
Loving the thread so far snowleopard but thought I would throw in a money saving tip... Wet wipes! Not great for more than a day or two but if you can start to smell yourself then just use those until you get a proper shower! 
Remember though, it's only a temporary solution, not a bathing alternative!
Remember though, it's only a temporary solution, not a bathing alternative!
Even though I grew up in Los Angeles, I have never heard of this last place (number 40 on your list).
As for motel prices, they are crazy because you are visiting the California coast in summer. In San Diego, hotel prices literally double in summer (opposite of my city of Tucson, where hotel prices are halved in summer due to heat and lack of tourists).
As for motel prices, they are crazy because you are visiting the California coast in summer. In San Diego, hotel prices literally double in summer (opposite of my city of Tucson, where hotel prices are halved in summer due to heat and lack of tourists).
Astounding detective work as ever S.L...re. no carpark at the Wildlife Learning Centre im sure you will remember that it isnt THAT unusual,even in the States - Racine for one.And....neither zoo in Berlin has one,nor does Antwerp,Moscow, Frankfurt,either Paris Zoo, and on and on.
Racine actually does have a puny 12 space lot, though half of that is for handy capped parking.
ANyhuis
Well-Known Member
Wow, good point! But all (or most) of those zoos have lots of street parking. I think, however, these zoos are trying to "encourage" visitors to use public transportation instead of personal cars.
ANyhuis
Well-Known Member
Really enjoying SnowLeopard's trip! Just a few minor comments:
As I've traveled in a similar way to SL over in Europe, I'm always thankful that European rest stops usually have showers -- though you have to pay a nominal fee to use them.
As someone said above, you were in California, which is one of the USA's most expensive states. What I and my wife found frustrating is traveling with a family of 4 kids and encountering motels that would not let us in because we have more than 2 kids. They'd tell us that "fire code" prevents them from allowing more than 4 to a room, thus trying to force us pay for 2 rooms! How are our kids safer, in the event of a fire, if they're spread out throughout 2 rooms? Really crazy is that this problem is most prevalent in liberal New England!
I slightly disagree. Maybe a more nominal fee of $4 might be better. I'm imagining a typical LA Hispanic Catholic family with 5 (or more) kids. With mom and 5 kids, that's a $60 trip to the museum/zoo, making it pretty unaffordable for many.
A major USA zoo that's had this problem is Knoxville, where you have to circle back through most of the zoo to get out.
As I've traveled in a similar way to SL over in Europe, I'm always thankful that European rest stops usually have showers -- though you have to pay a nominal fee to use them.
As someone said above, you were in California, which is one of the USA's most expensive states. What I and my wife found frustrating is traveling with a family of 4 kids and encountering motels that would not let us in because we have more than 2 kids. They'd tell us that "fire code" prevents them from allowing more than 4 to a room, thus trying to force us pay for 2 rooms! How are our kids safer, in the event of a fire, if they're spread out throughout 2 rooms? Really crazy is that this problem is most prevalent in liberal New England!
I slightly disagree. Maybe a more nominal fee of $4 might be better. I'm imagining a typical LA Hispanic Catholic family with 5 (or more) kids. With mom and 5 kids, that's a $60 trip to the museum/zoo, making it pretty unaffordable for many.
A major USA zoo that's had this problem is Knoxville, where you have to circle back through most of the zoo to get out.
or do what the birds do - just roll around in the dust. It's free.Loving the thread so far snowleopard but thought I would throw in a money saving tip... Wet wipes! Not great for more than a day or two but if you can start to smell yourself then just use those until you get a proper shower!
Remember though, it's only a temporary solution, not a bathing alternative!
DAY 15: Saturday, July 15th
“Life’s like a road that you travel on
When there’s one day here and the next day gone
Sometimes you bend, sometimes you stand
Sometimes you turn your back to the wind
There’s a world outside every darkened door
Where blues won’t haunt you anymore
Where the brave are free and lovers soar
Come ride with me to the distant shore
We won’t hesitate, break down the garden gate
There’s not much time left today
Life is a highway
I want to ride it all night long
If you’re going my way
I want to drive it all night long”
- Written by Canadian Hall of Fame singer Tom Cochrane
I’m going to have a short rant about Los Angeles traffic as essentially the idea of driving in and around the Los Angeles metropolitan area at a decent speed is ridiculous. I’ve driven through L.A. on at least 8 occasions in the past decade, plus I’ve probably visited a dozen different cities and suburbs in the L.A. area this week and wherever I go the congestion is intense. It is not like Mexico where everyone is honking non-stop at everybody else and bedlam ensues, but in Los Angeles drivers realize where they live and cope with the madness on a daily basis. Folks are texting or talking on phones, doing their makeup, putting on deodorant, reading a book at stop lights and generally being cooperative. It is like the opening scene of La La Land (Ryan Gosling/Emma Stone film released in 2016) where everyone is at a full stop and people start bursting out into singing and dancing. I kept imagining that happen and it sadly never did, but I suppose since Ryan Gosling is a Canadian then he would be much too polite to hold up traffic in real life for a silly song-and-dance routine.
I honestly do not know why anyone would want to live in Los Angeles based solely on the craziness of the traffic congestion. Forget the smog, air-quality pollution, more graffiti than any other American city, or piles of garbage beneath the highway overpasses (doesn’t anyone clean that stuff up?) but the bumper-to-bumper driving with 4-5 lanes jammed with cars is mind-boggling. The night I saw the two small aquariums (July 11th) I was bumper-to-bumper for many tedious hours late in the evening; the day I did 7 small zoos in one day (July 12th) I could probably have walked to some of them faster than I got there in my minivan; on the day of the Los Angeles Zoo visit (July 13th) I was on the highway at 5:40 a.m. while it was not fully light yet and it was bumper-to-bumper traffic all the way to the zoo. The past couple of days, Friday and Saturday, the driving has been even more nightmarish and I’ve always felt that I’ve had to crawl my way through the dirt, graffiti and congestion of L.A. in order to reach the glory of San Diego. There are surely some great things about Los Angeles, including a very popular zoo (1.6 million annual visitors) and an even more popular Aquarium of the Pacific (1.7 million annual visitors) but driving anywhere is beyond frustrating. I’ve been to something crazy like the 75 largest American cities but none of them top Los Angeles for either graffiti or traffic congestion.
Zoo/Aquarium #41: Gibbon Conservation Center
I really enjoy gibbons and I think that they make a wonderful exhibit and I often question any zoos that don’t have gibbons in their collection. Nashville Zoo has two gibbon islands right near the entrance and it makes for a magnificent welcome when the apes are vocalizing…come into our zoo! Henry Vilas Zoo has a gibbon enclosure in the Children’s Zoo and families spend a lot of time relaxing and also watching the apes in the background. There are plenty of top-notch gibbon exhibits (Santa Barbara, Miami in those big fake trees, San Diego’s siamangs in with the orangs, etc.) and the only downside is that invariably 50% of all visitors say to their kids: “look at the monkey, isn’t he cute!”
At the Gibbon Conservation Center, in Santa Clarita and 45 minutes northwest of Los Angeles, there is a single Siamang and then two or more enclosures of each of these 4 species: Northern White-Cheeked, Javan, Pileated and Eastern Hoolock. It was great to walk around the small facility alone and then drop in on a tour to hear some more details on the individuals at the establishment. The enclosures are basic metal cages but they aren’t as tiny as I had imagined them to be and I saw lots of gibbons brachiating and crashing around their homes. The speed and prowess of these beautiful animals is amazing to see and this facility has been around since 1976, has had a lot of breeding success, and currently has 42 gibbons in its care.
Zoo/Aquarium #42: America’s Teaching Zoo: Moorpark College
About an hour west of Los Angeles is the city of Moorpark, home to an esteemed college and also a training facility for future zookeepers. I did some research and there is a two-year commitment for future students if they wish to go to college here, including working on weekends caring for the 200 animals that call the zoo home. You cannot hold down an outside job, must be able to work with lots of like-minded individuals, must have public speaking skills (zookeepers these days give hundreds of presentations and talks to the public each year), and there are usually between 110-150 applicants for the 52 positions that are open annually. For California residents, including housing, the two-year program can cost approximately $30,000. For non-California residents it is more than $40,000 for the program, and many students that take the program end up working at a zoo or aquarium somewhere in the United States.
This is an interesting place as in terms of exhibit quality I would give the zoo a 1 out of 10 or perhaps 2 out of 10 if I was feeling generous. The bird aviaries are not very large and most are metal cages, the Reptile House has average-sized terrariums in a dark and cluttered room, the primate section houses many solo animals in corn-crib metal cages and the carnivore section is the worst of all. An African Lion, Spotted Hyena, Coyote, Cougar and Ocelot are all in fairly small metal cages with cement floors and almost nothing to do except sleep. The lion was stretched out and the cat was perhaps a third the size, from head to the tip of its tail, of the entire length of its old-fashioned cage. I chatted with a couple of students/keepers and they said that there is an attempt to raise funds for new exhibits and the carnivores are first on the list when funding becomes available. The primate list consists of the following 8 species: Siamang, Northern White-Cheeked Gibbon, Olive Baboon, Hamadryas Baboon, Vervet Monkey, Brown Tufted Capuchin, Black-Handed Spider Monkey and Ring-Tailed Lemur.
I was genuinely surprised at how messy and unprofessional the entire facility was, with hoses, bits of cardboard, a whole pile of wood, crude signs and small cages being all over the place. Maybe that is the point, in that the zoo is a working facility for students, but it looks junky. If America’s Teaching Zoo was a privately-owned establishment then it would be lambasted by both the public and zoo nerds but because it is part of a college should we all just give it a free pass? I know that many small American “sanctuaries” have loads of chain-link cages and to be perfectly honest America’s Teaching Zoo greatly disappointed me. Isn’t running a zoo all about providing excellent accommodation for the inhabitants, as well as having properly signposted trails, clean washrooms with light fixtures that aren’t broken, more than just cement and hanging tires in mammal cages, etc.
Zoo/Aquarium #43: Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History Sea Center
Including 4 marine mammal rescue centers and of course the behemoth that is SeaWorld San Diego, by my count there are 22 aquariums in the state of California and I’ve now visited all of them. I suppose that even Six Flags Discovery Kingdom, with its dolphins, walruses, shark exhibit, penguins and stingray touch tank, could perhaps be included as a 23rd “aquarium” although there is still quite a large “zoo” element to that noisy, chaotic establishment.
Santa Barbara is a coastal city about an hour and a half west of Los Angeles, and it is home to a decent zoo that I toured in 2011. This facility has a name that is a true mouthful to say…why not just call it Santa Barbara Aquarium? It is located right on the Pacific Ocean, in a gorgeous setting near the end of a long pier. Incredibly, the historic wooden pier (built in 1872) is wide enough so that cars can drive down to the end and park. From that point on there is the aquarium, several stunning restaurants and lots of shops as the pier is enormous and apparently the 3rd longest in the state of California. Santa Cruz has the longest pier in California (2,745 feet), San Diego is 2nd (1,971 feet), Santa Barbara’s is third (1,950 feet), Huntingdon Beach is 5th (where the Roundhouse Aquarium is located) and Santa Monica (with the big ferris wheel) is only 18th. I’ve been unknowingly touring piers as well as aquariums on this trip, but what a great place to build an aquatic venture! The aquarium in Santa Barbara would make a nice one-two punch with the local zoo or for any tourists eating ice cream and puttering around in the summer.
There are only 16 tanks in this place and half an hour is probably the maximum time to be spent by a single zoo enthusiast without kids along for the tour, but the quality is fairly high. There are a couple of touch tanks that cater to youngsters, several jellyfish exhibits, my daily dose of Horn Sharks and Swell Sharks, but most intriguing of all is the Wet Deck. After exiting a couple of average-sized aquarium rooms there is an enclosed room that is supposed to simulate being on a ship, complete with a massive square hole that looks directly into the Pacific Ocean. There is a 4-foot railing that stops people falling spectacularly into the water and a couple of fishing lines that hang over the edge with nets at the bottom of them. The aquarium actually catches animals each day, shows them to the public, then releases them a few hours later or even places the creatures in a tank for however long they need an animal ambassador. While I was there I saw a two-foot long California Spiny Lobster in a bucket that had just been caught before my arrival. This place is pretty cool but it is yet another tiny aquarium on the California coastline with a stupendous setting and a small grouping of tanks.
“Life’s like a road that you travel on
When there’s one day here and the next day gone
Sometimes you bend, sometimes you stand
Sometimes you turn your back to the wind
There’s a world outside every darkened door
Where blues won’t haunt you anymore
Where the brave are free and lovers soar
Come ride with me to the distant shore
We won’t hesitate, break down the garden gate
There’s not much time left today
Life is a highway
I want to ride it all night long
If you’re going my way
I want to drive it all night long”
- Written by Canadian Hall of Fame singer Tom Cochrane
I’m going to have a short rant about Los Angeles traffic as essentially the idea of driving in and around the Los Angeles metropolitan area at a decent speed is ridiculous. I’ve driven through L.A. on at least 8 occasions in the past decade, plus I’ve probably visited a dozen different cities and suburbs in the L.A. area this week and wherever I go the congestion is intense. It is not like Mexico where everyone is honking non-stop at everybody else and bedlam ensues, but in Los Angeles drivers realize where they live and cope with the madness on a daily basis. Folks are texting or talking on phones, doing their makeup, putting on deodorant, reading a book at stop lights and generally being cooperative. It is like the opening scene of La La Land (Ryan Gosling/Emma Stone film released in 2016) where everyone is at a full stop and people start bursting out into singing and dancing. I kept imagining that happen and it sadly never did, but I suppose since Ryan Gosling is a Canadian then he would be much too polite to hold up traffic in real life for a silly song-and-dance routine.
I honestly do not know why anyone would want to live in Los Angeles based solely on the craziness of the traffic congestion. Forget the smog, air-quality pollution, more graffiti than any other American city, or piles of garbage beneath the highway overpasses (doesn’t anyone clean that stuff up?) but the bumper-to-bumper driving with 4-5 lanes jammed with cars is mind-boggling. The night I saw the two small aquariums (July 11th) I was bumper-to-bumper for many tedious hours late in the evening; the day I did 7 small zoos in one day (July 12th) I could probably have walked to some of them faster than I got there in my minivan; on the day of the Los Angeles Zoo visit (July 13th) I was on the highway at 5:40 a.m. while it was not fully light yet and it was bumper-to-bumper traffic all the way to the zoo. The past couple of days, Friday and Saturday, the driving has been even more nightmarish and I’ve always felt that I’ve had to crawl my way through the dirt, graffiti and congestion of L.A. in order to reach the glory of San Diego. There are surely some great things about Los Angeles, including a very popular zoo (1.6 million annual visitors) and an even more popular Aquarium of the Pacific (1.7 million annual visitors) but driving anywhere is beyond frustrating. I’ve been to something crazy like the 75 largest American cities but none of them top Los Angeles for either graffiti or traffic congestion.
Zoo/Aquarium #41: Gibbon Conservation Center
I really enjoy gibbons and I think that they make a wonderful exhibit and I often question any zoos that don’t have gibbons in their collection. Nashville Zoo has two gibbon islands right near the entrance and it makes for a magnificent welcome when the apes are vocalizing…come into our zoo! Henry Vilas Zoo has a gibbon enclosure in the Children’s Zoo and families spend a lot of time relaxing and also watching the apes in the background. There are plenty of top-notch gibbon exhibits (Santa Barbara, Miami in those big fake trees, San Diego’s siamangs in with the orangs, etc.) and the only downside is that invariably 50% of all visitors say to their kids: “look at the monkey, isn’t he cute!”
At the Gibbon Conservation Center, in Santa Clarita and 45 minutes northwest of Los Angeles, there is a single Siamang and then two or more enclosures of each of these 4 species: Northern White-Cheeked, Javan, Pileated and Eastern Hoolock. It was great to walk around the small facility alone and then drop in on a tour to hear some more details on the individuals at the establishment. The enclosures are basic metal cages but they aren’t as tiny as I had imagined them to be and I saw lots of gibbons brachiating and crashing around their homes. The speed and prowess of these beautiful animals is amazing to see and this facility has been around since 1976, has had a lot of breeding success, and currently has 42 gibbons in its care.
Zoo/Aquarium #42: America’s Teaching Zoo: Moorpark College
About an hour west of Los Angeles is the city of Moorpark, home to an esteemed college and also a training facility for future zookeepers. I did some research and there is a two-year commitment for future students if they wish to go to college here, including working on weekends caring for the 200 animals that call the zoo home. You cannot hold down an outside job, must be able to work with lots of like-minded individuals, must have public speaking skills (zookeepers these days give hundreds of presentations and talks to the public each year), and there are usually between 110-150 applicants for the 52 positions that are open annually. For California residents, including housing, the two-year program can cost approximately $30,000. For non-California residents it is more than $40,000 for the program, and many students that take the program end up working at a zoo or aquarium somewhere in the United States.
This is an interesting place as in terms of exhibit quality I would give the zoo a 1 out of 10 or perhaps 2 out of 10 if I was feeling generous. The bird aviaries are not very large and most are metal cages, the Reptile House has average-sized terrariums in a dark and cluttered room, the primate section houses many solo animals in corn-crib metal cages and the carnivore section is the worst of all. An African Lion, Spotted Hyena, Coyote, Cougar and Ocelot are all in fairly small metal cages with cement floors and almost nothing to do except sleep. The lion was stretched out and the cat was perhaps a third the size, from head to the tip of its tail, of the entire length of its old-fashioned cage. I chatted with a couple of students/keepers and they said that there is an attempt to raise funds for new exhibits and the carnivores are first on the list when funding becomes available. The primate list consists of the following 8 species: Siamang, Northern White-Cheeked Gibbon, Olive Baboon, Hamadryas Baboon, Vervet Monkey, Brown Tufted Capuchin, Black-Handed Spider Monkey and Ring-Tailed Lemur.
I was genuinely surprised at how messy and unprofessional the entire facility was, with hoses, bits of cardboard, a whole pile of wood, crude signs and small cages being all over the place. Maybe that is the point, in that the zoo is a working facility for students, but it looks junky. If America’s Teaching Zoo was a privately-owned establishment then it would be lambasted by both the public and zoo nerds but because it is part of a college should we all just give it a free pass? I know that many small American “sanctuaries” have loads of chain-link cages and to be perfectly honest America’s Teaching Zoo greatly disappointed me. Isn’t running a zoo all about providing excellent accommodation for the inhabitants, as well as having properly signposted trails, clean washrooms with light fixtures that aren’t broken, more than just cement and hanging tires in mammal cages, etc.
Zoo/Aquarium #43: Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History Sea Center
Including 4 marine mammal rescue centers and of course the behemoth that is SeaWorld San Diego, by my count there are 22 aquariums in the state of California and I’ve now visited all of them. I suppose that even Six Flags Discovery Kingdom, with its dolphins, walruses, shark exhibit, penguins and stingray touch tank, could perhaps be included as a 23rd “aquarium” although there is still quite a large “zoo” element to that noisy, chaotic establishment.
Santa Barbara is a coastal city about an hour and a half west of Los Angeles, and it is home to a decent zoo that I toured in 2011. This facility has a name that is a true mouthful to say…why not just call it Santa Barbara Aquarium? It is located right on the Pacific Ocean, in a gorgeous setting near the end of a long pier. Incredibly, the historic wooden pier (built in 1872) is wide enough so that cars can drive down to the end and park. From that point on there is the aquarium, several stunning restaurants and lots of shops as the pier is enormous and apparently the 3rd longest in the state of California. Santa Cruz has the longest pier in California (2,745 feet), San Diego is 2nd (1,971 feet), Santa Barbara’s is third (1,950 feet), Huntingdon Beach is 5th (where the Roundhouse Aquarium is located) and Santa Monica (with the big ferris wheel) is only 18th. I’ve been unknowingly touring piers as well as aquariums on this trip, but what a great place to build an aquatic venture! The aquarium in Santa Barbara would make a nice one-two punch with the local zoo or for any tourists eating ice cream and puttering around in the summer.
There are only 16 tanks in this place and half an hour is probably the maximum time to be spent by a single zoo enthusiast without kids along for the tour, but the quality is fairly high. There are a couple of touch tanks that cater to youngsters, several jellyfish exhibits, my daily dose of Horn Sharks and Swell Sharks, but most intriguing of all is the Wet Deck. After exiting a couple of average-sized aquarium rooms there is an enclosed room that is supposed to simulate being on a ship, complete with a massive square hole that looks directly into the Pacific Ocean. There is a 4-foot railing that stops people falling spectacularly into the water and a couple of fishing lines that hang over the edge with nets at the bottom of them. The aquarium actually catches animals each day, shows them to the public, then releases them a few hours later or even places the creatures in a tank for however long they need an animal ambassador. While I was there I saw a two-foot long California Spiny Lobster in a bucket that had just been caught before my arrival. This place is pretty cool but it is yet another tiny aquarium on the California coastline with a stupendous setting and a small grouping of tanks.
Since I grew up (and learned to drive) in Los Angeles I can wholeheartedly agree with snowloepard's assessment. Even though I grew up in one of the nicest suburbs of the entire area (which I could never afford to live in on my own), I try to never go back. When I met up with snowleopard a couple times last week, I managed to bypass it altogether by hopping on I-215 on the far eastern fringes both on my way to Fresno and my way back down to SD Safari Park and Julian. Of course that route traverses a large swath of blindingly ugly Mojave Desert, but at least I could traverse it at full speed. Seriously people, avoid Los Angeles at all costs.
ANyhuis
Well-Known Member
I was actually born in Los Angeles (in the northern suburb of Van Nuys), so I maintain a certain loyalty to the area. I love visiting there and I even get a little misty-eyed when I hear "California Dreamin'", but SL is right, the traffic, graffiti, cost-of-living, and other factors are horrible. That's why L.A. is a great place to visit, but I'd never want to live there (again).
As for best gibbon exhibits that I've seen, I'd go across the Atlantic to the Twycross Zoo in UK, with their fairly new "Gibbon Forest", where 4 different species can be seen both indoors and outside in spacious islands.
I've surely never laid eyes on Eastern Hoolock Gibbons before and so that was a delight...as all gibbon species are. Yes, there were a handful of young ladies at the Gibbon Conservation Center but that describes everywhere I go! I read recently that 80% of all keepers in AZA zoos are women.
DAY 16: Sunday, July 16th
Yesterday, after I finished off my 3rd zoo of the day, I headed north towards the land of polite, respectful, ice-hockey playing Canadians huddled in their igloos with seal bones in their noses. There are at least a few of you that had a draft of my itinerary and those individuals might notice that I am heading home a day early and in fact I’m skipping the final 3 zoos that I had planned to tour. I suppose that there is a first time for everything and after giving it a lot of thought I decided to head north as I know that my wife Debbie and the 4 little monkeys will greatly appreciate me coming home a day earlier than planned.
What threw a kink into my itinerary was the Hesperia Zoo as the place appears to have closed down…and I’ve never had a zoo close while on one of my long zoo trips. Spelling is not the strong suit of the zoo owners and on the facility’s website it says: “Temporary Closed for Up-Grades” when it should of course say “Temporarily”. I’ve emailed and called but to no avail and so that place is closed…at least “temporary”! Haha. Anyway, there was also Star Eco Station, which is a very tiny place in the Los Angeles metropolitan area (Culver City) that has 200 rescued animals and 45-minute guided tours only on weekends. However, I called them and those 200 animals include cockroachs, various other invertebrates and on any given visit not all the animals are seen by the public. That meant I was left with Big Bear Alpine Zoo, a small establishment on 2 acres that is closing down in 2018 as a brand-new, 10-acre zoo will go up in its place in a separate, nearby location. From Santa Barbara to Big Bear Alpine Zoo is 3.5 hours, plus another 1.5 hours back to the main highway through California. After all of the driving that I’ve done in the past two weeks, did I really want to go 5 hours out of my way for a 2-acre zoo that is closing down? I actually gave it a great deal of thought but this time I chose my family and headed north.
On my way up the 101 Highway I drove into Atascadero, right off the main road, and headed towards Charles Paddock Zoo. I panned this place in 2011 but I figured that I could do a quick 45-minute tour and be back on the road after the zoo closed as I checked the website on my Iphone and I knew that they were open until 5:00. I parked, walked up to the front entrance at 4:15 and was told that I could not purchase a ticket as once a year the zoo has an “Ice Cream Social Safari” or something along those lines. The zoo closes at 4:00 on that day and then reopens from 5:30-8:00 in the evening. What the heck? I tried Charles Paddock, I really did try to go back to your little zoo.
I did manage to squeeze one zoo into my Sunday of 1,050 km (652 miles) of driving:
Zoo/Aquarium #44: Sacramento Zoo
I visited Sacramento Zoo in 2011 and I now admit that I was too harsh on this establishment as I had a bad experience with many animals not being let out until long after opening time. Also, in the preceding few years I had visited loads of really large, famous American zoos and so from that perspective Sacramento was kind of junky and I labeled it a “dud zoo” in my review. Flash-forward to 2017 and on my second visit I found that the zoo has some serious flaws but overall it is much better than some of the zoological detritus that I’ve toured over the past decade. Remember my motto: I visit ‘em so you don’t have to. I think that 100% of the time whenever I go back to a zoo I always have a better experience as zoos are constantly evolving and improving as the years go by. Sacramento has chimps, orangs and 6 other primate species, giraffes, zebras, 4 big cat species, 4 hornbill species, a Reptile House with 30+ species, a pretty flamingo lagoon and a nice assortment of smaller animals (Aardvark, Giant Anteater, North American River Otter, Fennec Fox, Tamandua, etc.).
The Red River Hog, zebra and Eastern Bongo yards still have bizarre piles of rocks that seem to dominate the landscape; the chimps are in a glorified cage that is outdated; and the African Lions and Sumatran Tigers have puny exhibits. However, the Red Panda habitat is nice, several aviaries are decent, the fairly new Small Wonders area (2014) is worthwhile and the gift shop is spacious and impressive. One major flaw is that there are no washrooms and I actually noticed that before a family with a group of kids entered and I immediately predicted the conversation that would take place with a staff member. Off of the top of my head I am struggling to think of a single other zoo that I’ve ever visited that does not have washrooms at the entrance. Surely there are some more zoos like that, right? Sacramento has two sets of washrooms, but both are a bit of a walk for little kids and it is so bizarre that their entrance zone has a first aid section, an information booth, a terrific gift shop, an ATM machine, stroller rentals, the zoo train…but not washrooms anywhere to be seen. Overall I was glad that I spent an hour and a half at Sacramento Zoo and it was a pleasant experience, but for a facility in the capital city of California it could be much better.
California Recap:
Assuming that Hesperia Zoo has closed for good, I’ve now toured 62 out of the 70 zoos in the state of California. I made comments below on the 8 that I have not visited because they all have very limited and expensive tours that are not really conducive to attracting great numbers of visitors. Also, the aquatic facilities are all in bold.
**** = have not visited
America’s Teaching Zoo: Moorpark College (Moorpark)
Applegate Park Zoo (Merced)
Aquarium of the Bay (San Francisco)
Aquarium of the Pacific (Long Beach)
B. Bryan Preserve (Point Arena)
****Big Bear Alpine Zoo (Big Bear Lake) – moving to a new, larger location in 2018
Birch Aquarium (San Diego)
Bolsa Chica Interpretative Center (Huntington Beach)
Cabrillo Marine Aquarium (San Pedro)
California Academy of Sciences (San Francisco)- Steinhart Aquarium
California Raptor Center (Davis)
California Science Center (Los Angeles)
California Living Museum (Bakersfield)
California Wolf Center (Julian)
Central Coast Aquarium (Avila Beach)
Charles Paddock Zoo (Atascadero)
CuriOdyssey (San Mateo)
Doheny State Beach Interpret. Center & Aquarium (Dana Point)
****EcoVivarium (Escondido) – obscure facility only open 5 days per week
****Emerald Forest Bird Gardens (Fallbrook) - $35, pre-booked guided tour
Feline Conservation Center (Rosamond)
Folsom City Zoo Sanctuary (Folsom)
Forever Wild Exotic Animal Sanctuary (Phelan)
Free Flight: Exotic Bird Sanctuary (Del Mar)
Fresno Chaffee Zoo (Fresno)
Gibbon Conservation Center (Santa Clarita)
Happy Hollow Park & Zoo (San Jose)
Lindsay Wildlife Experience (Walnut Creek)
****Lions, Tigers & Bears: A Big Cat & Exotic Animal Rescue (Alpine) - $33, 1.5 hour, pre-booked tour
Living Coast Discovery Center (Chula Vista)
Living Desert Zoo (Palm Desert)
Los Angeles Zoo (Los Angeles)
Marine Mammal Care Center (San Pedro)
Marine Mammal Center (Sausalito)
Micke Grove Zoo (Lodi)
Monterey Bay Aquarium (Monterey)
Monterey Zoo (Salinas)
Morro Bay Aquarium (Morro Bay)
Natural History Museum: Butterfly Pavilion (Los Angeles)
Northcoast Marine Mammal Center (Crescent City)
Oakland Zoo (Oakland)
Ocean Institute (Dana Point)
Ocean World (Crescent City)
Orange County Zoo (Orange)
Pacific Marine Mammal Center (Laguna Beach)
Palo Alto Junior Museum & Zoo (Palo Alto)
Project Survival’s Cat Haven (Dunlap)
Reptile Zoo (Fountain Valley)
Roundhouse Marine Studies Lab & Aquarium (Manhattan Beach)
Sacramento Zoo (Sacramento)
Safari West Wildlife Preserve (Sonoma County)
San Diego Zoo (San Diego)
San Diego Zoo Safari Park (Escondido)
San Francisco Zoo (San Francisco)
Santa Ana Zoo (Santa Ana)
Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History Sea Center (Santa Barbara)
Santa Barbara Zoo (Santa Barbara)
Santa Monica Pier Aquarium (Santa Monica)
Sea Life Carlsbad (Carlsbad)
SeaWorld San Diego (San Diego)
Sequoia Park Zoo (Eureka)
Seymour Marine Discovery Center (Santa Cruz)
****Shambala Preserve (Acton) – only open for pre-booked tours one weekend per month
Six Flags Discovery Kingdom (Vallejo)
****Star Eco Station: Exotic Wildlife Rescue Facility (Culver City) – only open for hourly weekend tours
Sulphur Creek Nature Center (Hayward)
Turtle Bay Exploration Park (Redding)
****Wildhaven Ranch (Lake Arrowhead) – only open for tours on Saturdays
Wildlife Learning Center (Sylmar)
****Wolf Mountain Sanctuary (Lucerne Valley) – limited, pre-booked $25 tours (30 minutes long)
Yesterday, after I finished off my 3rd zoo of the day, I headed north towards the land of polite, respectful, ice-hockey playing Canadians huddled in their igloos with seal bones in their noses. There are at least a few of you that had a draft of my itinerary and those individuals might notice that I am heading home a day early and in fact I’m skipping the final 3 zoos that I had planned to tour. I suppose that there is a first time for everything and after giving it a lot of thought I decided to head north as I know that my wife Debbie and the 4 little monkeys will greatly appreciate me coming home a day earlier than planned.
What threw a kink into my itinerary was the Hesperia Zoo as the place appears to have closed down…and I’ve never had a zoo close while on one of my long zoo trips. Spelling is not the strong suit of the zoo owners and on the facility’s website it says: “Temporary Closed for Up-Grades” when it should of course say “Temporarily”. I’ve emailed and called but to no avail and so that place is closed…at least “temporary”! Haha. Anyway, there was also Star Eco Station, which is a very tiny place in the Los Angeles metropolitan area (Culver City) that has 200 rescued animals and 45-minute guided tours only on weekends. However, I called them and those 200 animals include cockroachs, various other invertebrates and on any given visit not all the animals are seen by the public. That meant I was left with Big Bear Alpine Zoo, a small establishment on 2 acres that is closing down in 2018 as a brand-new, 10-acre zoo will go up in its place in a separate, nearby location. From Santa Barbara to Big Bear Alpine Zoo is 3.5 hours, plus another 1.5 hours back to the main highway through California. After all of the driving that I’ve done in the past two weeks, did I really want to go 5 hours out of my way for a 2-acre zoo that is closing down? I actually gave it a great deal of thought but this time I chose my family and headed north.
On my way up the 101 Highway I drove into Atascadero, right off the main road, and headed towards Charles Paddock Zoo. I panned this place in 2011 but I figured that I could do a quick 45-minute tour and be back on the road after the zoo closed as I checked the website on my Iphone and I knew that they were open until 5:00. I parked, walked up to the front entrance at 4:15 and was told that I could not purchase a ticket as once a year the zoo has an “Ice Cream Social Safari” or something along those lines. The zoo closes at 4:00 on that day and then reopens from 5:30-8:00 in the evening. What the heck? I tried Charles Paddock, I really did try to go back to your little zoo.
I did manage to squeeze one zoo into my Sunday of 1,050 km (652 miles) of driving:
Zoo/Aquarium #44: Sacramento Zoo
I visited Sacramento Zoo in 2011 and I now admit that I was too harsh on this establishment as I had a bad experience with many animals not being let out until long after opening time. Also, in the preceding few years I had visited loads of really large, famous American zoos and so from that perspective Sacramento was kind of junky and I labeled it a “dud zoo” in my review. Flash-forward to 2017 and on my second visit I found that the zoo has some serious flaws but overall it is much better than some of the zoological detritus that I’ve toured over the past decade. Remember my motto: I visit ‘em so you don’t have to. I think that 100% of the time whenever I go back to a zoo I always have a better experience as zoos are constantly evolving and improving as the years go by. Sacramento has chimps, orangs and 6 other primate species, giraffes, zebras, 4 big cat species, 4 hornbill species, a Reptile House with 30+ species, a pretty flamingo lagoon and a nice assortment of smaller animals (Aardvark, Giant Anteater, North American River Otter, Fennec Fox, Tamandua, etc.).
The Red River Hog, zebra and Eastern Bongo yards still have bizarre piles of rocks that seem to dominate the landscape; the chimps are in a glorified cage that is outdated; and the African Lions and Sumatran Tigers have puny exhibits. However, the Red Panda habitat is nice, several aviaries are decent, the fairly new Small Wonders area (2014) is worthwhile and the gift shop is spacious and impressive. One major flaw is that there are no washrooms and I actually noticed that before a family with a group of kids entered and I immediately predicted the conversation that would take place with a staff member. Off of the top of my head I am struggling to think of a single other zoo that I’ve ever visited that does not have washrooms at the entrance. Surely there are some more zoos like that, right? Sacramento has two sets of washrooms, but both are a bit of a walk for little kids and it is so bizarre that their entrance zone has a first aid section, an information booth, a terrific gift shop, an ATM machine, stroller rentals, the zoo train…but not washrooms anywhere to be seen. Overall I was glad that I spent an hour and a half at Sacramento Zoo and it was a pleasant experience, but for a facility in the capital city of California it could be much better.
California Recap:
Assuming that Hesperia Zoo has closed for good, I’ve now toured 62 out of the 70 zoos in the state of California. I made comments below on the 8 that I have not visited because they all have very limited and expensive tours that are not really conducive to attracting great numbers of visitors. Also, the aquatic facilities are all in bold.
**** = have not visited
America’s Teaching Zoo: Moorpark College (Moorpark)
Applegate Park Zoo (Merced)
Aquarium of the Bay (San Francisco)
Aquarium of the Pacific (Long Beach)
B. Bryan Preserve (Point Arena)
****Big Bear Alpine Zoo (Big Bear Lake) – moving to a new, larger location in 2018
Birch Aquarium (San Diego)
Bolsa Chica Interpretative Center (Huntington Beach)
Cabrillo Marine Aquarium (San Pedro)
California Academy of Sciences (San Francisco)- Steinhart Aquarium
California Raptor Center (Davis)
California Science Center (Los Angeles)
California Living Museum (Bakersfield)
California Wolf Center (Julian)
Central Coast Aquarium (Avila Beach)
Charles Paddock Zoo (Atascadero)
CuriOdyssey (San Mateo)
Doheny State Beach Interpret. Center & Aquarium (Dana Point)
****EcoVivarium (Escondido) – obscure facility only open 5 days per week
****Emerald Forest Bird Gardens (Fallbrook) - $35, pre-booked guided tour
Feline Conservation Center (Rosamond)
Folsom City Zoo Sanctuary (Folsom)
Forever Wild Exotic Animal Sanctuary (Phelan)
Free Flight: Exotic Bird Sanctuary (Del Mar)
Fresno Chaffee Zoo (Fresno)
Gibbon Conservation Center (Santa Clarita)
Happy Hollow Park & Zoo (San Jose)
Lindsay Wildlife Experience (Walnut Creek)
****Lions, Tigers & Bears: A Big Cat & Exotic Animal Rescue (Alpine) - $33, 1.5 hour, pre-booked tour
Living Coast Discovery Center (Chula Vista)
Living Desert Zoo (Palm Desert)
Los Angeles Zoo (Los Angeles)
Marine Mammal Care Center (San Pedro)
Marine Mammal Center (Sausalito)
Micke Grove Zoo (Lodi)
Monterey Bay Aquarium (Monterey)
Monterey Zoo (Salinas)
Morro Bay Aquarium (Morro Bay)
Natural History Museum: Butterfly Pavilion (Los Angeles)
Northcoast Marine Mammal Center (Crescent City)
Oakland Zoo (Oakland)
Ocean Institute (Dana Point)
Ocean World (Crescent City)
Orange County Zoo (Orange)
Pacific Marine Mammal Center (Laguna Beach)
Palo Alto Junior Museum & Zoo (Palo Alto)
Project Survival’s Cat Haven (Dunlap)
Reptile Zoo (Fountain Valley)
Roundhouse Marine Studies Lab & Aquarium (Manhattan Beach)
Sacramento Zoo (Sacramento)
Safari West Wildlife Preserve (Sonoma County)
San Diego Zoo (San Diego)
San Diego Zoo Safari Park (Escondido)
San Francisco Zoo (San Francisco)
Santa Ana Zoo (Santa Ana)
Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History Sea Center (Santa Barbara)
Santa Barbara Zoo (Santa Barbara)
Santa Monica Pier Aquarium (Santa Monica)
Sea Life Carlsbad (Carlsbad)
SeaWorld San Diego (San Diego)
Sequoia Park Zoo (Eureka)
Seymour Marine Discovery Center (Santa Cruz)
****Shambala Preserve (Acton) – only open for pre-booked tours one weekend per month
Six Flags Discovery Kingdom (Vallejo)
****Star Eco Station: Exotic Wildlife Rescue Facility (Culver City) – only open for hourly weekend tours
Sulphur Creek Nature Center (Hayward)
Turtle Bay Exploration Park (Redding)
****Wildhaven Ranch (Lake Arrowhead) – only open for tours on Saturdays
Wildlife Learning Center (Sylmar)
****Wolf Mountain Sanctuary (Lucerne Valley) – limited, pre-booked $25 tours (30 minutes long)
First of all, thanks to snowleopard for allowing us to tag along on his trip via the internet and for allowing me to tag along in person (for a small portion). The stars next to Shambala means there is at least one zoo in the United States that I have visited and he has not! You absolutely made the right decision not to backtrack from Santa Barbara - good call.
I am interested in the discussion of entrance restrooms, which apparently are called washrooms in Canada. Having them inside the entrance seems like a given. However what I am more interested in is how many have them outside the entrance gate, so that visitors can use them while they are waiting to get in (or on their way home)? Arizona Sonora Desert Museum has had this for a long time as well as San Diego Safari Park. When we visited San Diego Zoo last week, I noticed they had added some just outside the entrance (not attached to the building like the two above, but a separate block a short distance away). When I stopped by The Living Desert on my way out to meet snowleopard, a volunteer told me the new entrance complex (now under construction) would feature exterior restrooms.
You absolutely made the right decision not to backtrack from Santa Barbara - good call.I am interested in the discussion of entrance restrooms, which apparently are called washrooms in Canada. Having them inside the entrance seems like a given. However what I am more interested in is how many have them outside the entrance gate, so that visitors can use them while they are waiting to get in (or on their way home)? Arizona Sonora Desert Museum has had this for a long time as well as San Diego Safari Park. When we visited San Diego Zoo last week, I noticed they had added some just outside the entrance (not attached to the building like the two above, but a separate block a short distance away). When I stopped by The Living Desert on my way out to meet snowleopard, a volunteer told me the new entrance complex (now under construction) would feature exterior restrooms.
ANyhuis
Well-Known Member
One factor would be how far away the Zoo is from the downtown area. They wouldn't want to become the free restroom facilities for every bum/homeless person coming off the streets. If so, the restrooms would be filthy and potentially dangerous. No problem for out-in-the-country places like Arizona-Sonora, but I can't imagine the Bronx Zoo having them.
But SnowLeopard is right, it's not hard to imagine a family driving 20-30 minutes to get to the Zoo with at least one kid saying they need to go, and Mom tells them to "Hold it, we'll be at the Zoo soon!" Then, when they get there, they have to wait a half hour more? Not good.
DAY 17: Monday, July 17th
I drove 6 hours back home to Canada, with Sacramento being the 44th and final zoo of the trip yesterday. It is difficult to comprehend that a couple of years ago I was gone for 25 days and visited a staggering 81 zoos…many in southern states such as Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, Louisiana and Oklahoma. This time around seeing 44 zoos almost seems like a speedy vacation but in truth I think that I missed my family more this time around than ever before. When kids are really small they don’t know what the heck is going on and have zero grasp of time, hence at least some of my brood really do say “are we there yet?” after the minivan is a couple of miles down the road and a very long way from a destination. Now that the kids are getting a bit older they are becoming aware that dad is off visiting zoos for a long time and so I feel guilty for leaving Debbie in charge with all the work. At least it has been two years since my last road trip and it is going to be another year or two before the next one.
I do have some bits and bobs to add and so this thread won’t end just yet, but I do want to say a big THANK YOU to all of the individuals that contributed questions and comments to this thread. It is always great to have a surge of activity when I do my zoo trips, as I receive lots of private messages, emails and comments that would normally not occur.
Bits n' bobs:
First of all, I’ve come to the conclusion that 95% of all the zookeepers and other zoo employees that I’ve met in my lifetime have been to 20 or fewer zoos. I found it fascinating to chat with Greg and Byron at Los Angeles Zoo, two genuinely nice guys and keepers that work in the LAIR Reptile House at Los Angeles Zoo, and how they never visit other zoos. I told them about Reptile Zoo in Fountain Valley, less than an hour away, and neither had ever been and I’m not sure that either of them had even heard of the place even though there are DOUBLE the cold-blooded species found there in comparison to the LA Zoo. I remember talking to the director of Riverside Discovery Center in Scottsbluff, Nebraska, and she had been to perhaps 25 zoos in her lifetime. A couple of keepers at Reid Park Zoo, during my visit in 2015, told me that they had each been to less than 15 zoos ever, and most of those were at conferences. The list could go on and on but I find that for the most part individuals that work in zoos go to their local establishments within a short proximity to their own zoo and rarely anywhere else.
What reasons could there be for this?
- Many zookeepers work long days and by the time they get home, hot and dusty, they have cool showers and then are too exhausted to do anything else.
- Keepers work weekends on a regular basis and they work long hours and thus when they do have a couple of days off it is consumed with relaxing, doing household chores, spending time with family or recovering from their exertions.
- Visiting zoos across the country can be costly and time-consuming.
- Many individuals have a passion for their local zoo but little interest in other zoos.
Now that my 7th “Snowleopard Road Trip” has come to an end, after almost 8,000 km (5,000 miles) of driving, my newly updated lifetime zoo list looks like this:
All-time Zoo List:
USA: 325
Canada: 25
Australia: 19
Switzerland: 2 (Zurich + Langenberg in 2003)
Trinidad: 1 (Emperor Valley in 2008)
TOTAL: 372 zoos
I drove 6 hours back home to Canada, with Sacramento being the 44th and final zoo of the trip yesterday. It is difficult to comprehend that a couple of years ago I was gone for 25 days and visited a staggering 81 zoos…many in southern states such as Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, Louisiana and Oklahoma. This time around seeing 44 zoos almost seems like a speedy vacation but in truth I think that I missed my family more this time around than ever before. When kids are really small they don’t know what the heck is going on and have zero grasp of time, hence at least some of my brood really do say “are we there yet?” after the minivan is a couple of miles down the road and a very long way from a destination. Now that the kids are getting a bit older they are becoming aware that dad is off visiting zoos for a long time and so I feel guilty for leaving Debbie in charge with all the work. At least it has been two years since my last road trip and it is going to be another year or two before the next one.
I do have some bits and bobs to add and so this thread won’t end just yet, but I do want to say a big THANK YOU to all of the individuals that contributed questions and comments to this thread. It is always great to have a surge of activity when I do my zoo trips, as I receive lots of private messages, emails and comments that would normally not occur.
Bits n' bobs:
First of all, I’ve come to the conclusion that 95% of all the zookeepers and other zoo employees that I’ve met in my lifetime have been to 20 or fewer zoos. I found it fascinating to chat with Greg and Byron at Los Angeles Zoo, two genuinely nice guys and keepers that work in the LAIR Reptile House at Los Angeles Zoo, and how they never visit other zoos. I told them about Reptile Zoo in Fountain Valley, less than an hour away, and neither had ever been and I’m not sure that either of them had even heard of the place even though there are DOUBLE the cold-blooded species found there in comparison to the LA Zoo. I remember talking to the director of Riverside Discovery Center in Scottsbluff, Nebraska, and she had been to perhaps 25 zoos in her lifetime. A couple of keepers at Reid Park Zoo, during my visit in 2015, told me that they had each been to less than 15 zoos ever, and most of those were at conferences. The list could go on and on but I find that for the most part individuals that work in zoos go to their local establishments within a short proximity to their own zoo and rarely anywhere else.
What reasons could there be for this?
- Many zookeepers work long days and by the time they get home, hot and dusty, they have cool showers and then are too exhausted to do anything else.
- Keepers work weekends on a regular basis and they work long hours and thus when they do have a couple of days off it is consumed with relaxing, doing household chores, spending time with family or recovering from their exertions.
- Visiting zoos across the country can be costly and time-consuming.
- Many individuals have a passion for their local zoo but little interest in other zoos.
Now that my 7th “Snowleopard Road Trip” has come to an end, after almost 8,000 km (5,000 miles) of driving, my newly updated lifetime zoo list looks like this:
All-time Zoo List:
USA: 325
Canada: 25
Australia: 19
Switzerland: 2 (Zurich + Langenberg in 2003)
Trinidad: 1 (Emperor Valley in 2008)
TOTAL: 372 zoos
Congratulations on completing another impressive trip!
I greatly value your reviews and photos as they are quite helpful for me when deciding on which zoos to visit and which to avoid.
Regarding the zoo keeper question, that is an interesting observation, I wonder if it is also due to the fact that while keepers are passionate about animals, it is also their profession. As a result, when they are on vacation going to other zoos would in some way be similar to going to work. An intriguing observation though.
I greatly value your reviews and photos as they are quite helpful for me when deciding on which zoos to visit and which to avoid.
Regarding the zoo keeper question, that is an interesting observation, I wonder if it is also due to the fact that while keepers are passionate about animals, it is also their profession. As a result, when they are on vacation going to other zoos would in some way be similar to going to work. An intriguing observation though.