It's still a zoo....
It's been six months since we started this website. We are not viewed by millions and people aren't flooding our e-mail, but then we didn't expect that. Our intent was to share our experiences with you, our friends. We had hoped to do more from the road but that hasn't worked so well with our style while actually on the road (see the post "Intentions" below). We are happy with the ability to share photos we made in a higher quality than would be possible over the usual Facebook post.
While the website and stories have slipped down the priority list for Christmas preparation, family visits, and just having a good time, we hope to get more posted in the near future. We will keep the gallery pages (Favorites, Recent, Landscapes et al) to highlight our "best" photos. But sometimes there are photos which are best shared with a story instead of just letting the photos tell a story by themselves. And connecting a story with a photo is what we hope to do here.
With all that said, in November we visited the San Diego Zoo. We made some photos we liked but we then went to Death Valley and made some photos (OK we made a lot of photos) that we loved. But we still want to share some of the zoo photos.
One of the things about zoo critters is that some have become rock stars for reasons that may be similar to why some people are on the entertainment programs every single day. Pandas are in this category. However, we think we captured the true character of this animal.
Other animals get attention because they deserve attention. Gorillas are inherently interesting. Let's face facts. We have all known someone, maybe several someones, who seemed maybe slightly less with it then these largest primates. As we watched this particular gorilla we were impressed with the range of facial gestures and his attention to what was going on around him. Yes, they are large, but their obvious intelligence demands respect. OK, if there wasn't a sheet of inch-thick plexiglass between him and me, his size might be intimidating too. But really, these creatures are rock stars.
And then there are animals that don't get much attention because they just aren't cute or cuddly or weird looking or something odd. But the truth is they are all amazing. As former biologists, we have more than our share of bias when it comes to wildlife. Yet the more we learned, and the more we continue to learn the more amazing it all becomes. And yes, it IS all happening at the zoo.