Seeing the Country: Christmas / San Diego/ Zoo

Mary and I spent our first Christmas dinner to gather with 20 of our friends in Sun Vista "Where the Fun Never Sets" It was a fantastic meal with two turkeys and a very large ham. One turkey was provided by Mary. She won it in a shoot off with two men at shuffle board. With about sixty onlookers she out shot them by one point. And the crowd went wild. One of the birds was smoked and the other was deep fried. Both were delicious as was the ham.

This is Christmas in Yuma. Eating outside in the sunshine with friends.

The day after Christmas Mary and I went to San Diego for a three day stay. This is the view from our room at the Hilton bay front hotel. The ship is the Carnival liner that had a fire in the engine compartment.

The hotel pool from our room on the eighteenth floor. There is also a hot tub that we used but can't be seen from our room. It is a very nice hotel. You can see the bay at the right side of this photo.

The main street of San Diego's Gas Light district. It is Two blocks from the hotel.

One of the buildings in the Gas Light District. There are many historic buildings in the district.

The smiley face at "Hooters" in the Gas light district. We had a drink in the Hard Rock Café and Mary bought the obligatory "T". But we had Wings at Hooters

The inside of the "Crab Shack", our favorite restaurant on this trip. They serve crab any way you could think of. Our first meal was a combination of Snow and Dungeness crab, corn on the cob, shrimp, potatoes and Italian sausage.

Our last meal was "Crab Nachos" and yes we ate the whole thing.

The out side of the "Crab Shack" It was a ten minute walk from the hotel.

The entrance to the San Diego Zoo.

Always a very pretty thing to see. Pink Flamigos at the entrance.

We were at the zoo early and this tree was full of roosting Peafowl.

One of the most favorite attractions at the zoo are the Koala bears. This day they were very active.

This one was just moving around looking for some food.

This is the dominant male. He just sleeps.

This is one of the four Cheetahs they have at the zoo. She has a dog for a companion. They are paired at birth and are constant companions. Each Cheetah has its own dog. We were on a "special" tour "($40@) and as we left this exhibit both the dog and the cheetah chased us like a dog chasing a car. It was fun.

Meercats - no visit to a zoo is complete with out visiting them.

The star attraction is the "Panda" bears. Today they were very active except the baby. It just layed in a tree.

The adults were very active and we got lots of good pictures.

The male is very large and restless. He moved around the enclosure at a fast walk.

We took a ride on the "Gondola" over the zoo. Nice ride, but no thrills.

One of the"Polar Bears was active moving around the area eating carrots. Something that is rare in the Arctic.

This is the way we usually see "Polar bears.

Another hit at the zoo was this baby Gorilla. He put on a good show as he knew he was a star.

We took many photos of the little brat. You don't get to see them all.

We also visited the Wild Life park. We took a "tram" ride there. One and a half hour line for a 25 minuet ride, entrance to this park was $40 @ and for that you got this ride and a ride on the carousel. Such a deal. The last time I was here we got the ride and were able to feed Giraffes. This year the ride was wam bam thank you mam. They had more eating, drinking spots than animals. We were very disappointed in this part of the Zoo. Every thing was an additional fee. $40 for a balloon ride. $70 for a zip line ride that Mary said wasn't a real zip line any way (and she has done several).