San Diego Zoo | Ciao Bambino!

Photo Friday: Hello to the Hippos

Hippos at San Diego Zoo California

What I love about this picture is that it reminds me of the joy I experience when something amazes my children. I feel truly lucky to experience the world through their eyes. When people ask me how I handle the logistics of traveling with four young children, it is this feeling of happiness from sharing memorable moments that gets me through some of the annoying little details that come our way.

You can just feel their wonder in this shot. Getting this close to hippos, tigers, gorillas, polar bears, and orangutans, just to name a few, is what you can expect from the San Diego Zoo. The glass enclosures allow the kids to interact with the animals. The proximity inspires a sense of awe. We go multiple times a year and it never gets old. Often, we’ll just go for a short visit and have each kid pick his or her favorite animal to see. That way, we spend time at those three enclosures and the kids are happy because they saw “their” animal and we are happy because we were able to go without feeling like we needed to see the whole zoo.

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3 Comments
  • This also kind of reminds me of going to see the manatees at the Columbus (Ohio) Zoo.
    I agree with you about winter being a great time to visit the zoo. I did a couple of posts a week ago about visiting our Detroit Zoo in colder weather…and I love the underwater tunnel there where you can see the polar bears and seals up close and personal, like your hippos!

  • The hippos are pretty popular! 🙂 They are my favorite of course, and they are cool because they do interact with the people. San Diego is one of my son’s favorite places to visit, so will check out your other posts about it.

  • We love those hippos at the San Diego Zoo! ( Did you know someone else on Photo Friday also picked the hippos there?)
    We have seen so many amazing zoos on our open ended world tour as a family and I must admit there was not a one that we did not love!
    This summer we stayed over night on a safari at a fabulous zoo in Sweden that reminded me a bit of the San Diego Zoo. We got to hand feed the animals and sleep in a real safari tent which will help prepare us for our African journey.
    They too have lots of places with glass where you can see the animals up close which is so much fun for adults and kids. They even let you drive through in your car!
    I once did a play at the Globe in San Diego, so during my months there, I spent lots of time at that beautiful zoo which was just walking distance away. 😉

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