Did you enjoy the Living Desert Maguari? It is a very good zoo, but frequently gets overlooked because of its somewhat remote location relative to the San Diego zoos, Sea World, and the LA Zoo.
In the time since you have visited they have expanded their Africa area and now have a large giraffe exhibit, leopard exhibit, and striped hyena exhibit. They are supposedly close to starting a further expansion for lions (which may or may not include black rhinos, Nile crocodiles, and baboons also depending on what version of the exhibit they build).
Yes, I really enjoyed it. It was one of four zoos that were 'locked into' this family holiday from the start - I was allowed to monopolise our three days in San Diego to see the Zoo, WAP and SeaWorld, and this was included as my Dad had been there a couple of years earlier on a business trip to Palm Springs and wanted to show me it.
In the end, we also added the rather ramshackle Grand Canyon Deer Farm (mainly so I could take my own photo of a Pronghorn, as my camera had been stuck in the car boot on the occasions we saw wild ones) and also Oakland.
I would've loved to have done LA, but our time there was taken up by Disney, Universal Studios and a Hollywood bus tour - being a family holiday I couldn't have a total free rein!
It was a great trip though - a 3-week fly-drive going LA-San Diego-Palm Springs-Flagstaff/Grand Canyon-Las Vegas/Death Valley-Lee Vining/Lake Mono/Yosemite-South Lake Tahoe-Sacramento-San Francisco.
For now, those three weeks and 6 zoos are my whole experience of the US and its zoos, but all being well it'll be a different story in 12 months' time.
