Sex Ed at the Zoo
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- Zebra drinking
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- Flamingos are my favorite
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- The otter is disgusting
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- Gorilla munching
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- The elusive Morgan at lunch
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- I always thought these animals were the stalked!
Today we use our bus pass to visit the world famous San Diego Zoo. It’s just a 15 minute bus ride from downtown in Balboa Park, home of the 1915 Panama-California Exposition or World’s Fair. Balboa Park has tons of museums and things to do, but we’re just here for the zoo.
It’s been a long time since we’ve been to the zoo. When Morgan was a little guy, the zoo was a standard stop in just about every city we visited. We’ve been to the zoo in San Francisco, Seattle, Washington DC, Miami, Hamburg (you can buy some carrots to feed the elephants here), Munich, Frankfurt, and probably half a dozen more zoos that I can’t remember. For a long time our main sightseeing was the zoo and the science museum. Now that Morgan’s older, we have many more sightseeing options.
BUT this is the San Diego zoo. I went here when I was a kid growing up in this area, and I wanted to take my son here, especially. Sort of a full-circle type of thing. It’s not cheap ($37pp with an AAA discount) but it’s well worth it. Here are some of the things we saw and the school subjects covered:
- Monkeys flying through their cage, hootin’ and hollerin’, then doin’ it. From the back, and from the front. Sex ed, check.
- Pandas, not doing it, thank goodness, but might as well have been for the explicit lecture that comes with how they got here. It’s almost a soap opera – who can perform and who can’t. Sex ed, check again.
- The elephants got a good wash of their feet and we got to hear the trainers explain how they get the elephants to obey them. Psychology, check.
- The otter will pee on the rock and then turn around to lick it. What lesson is this? Otters are gross?
- The antelope who was peeking over the wall at the other antelopes next door. Looked like a peeping tom to us. Stalking, the wrong kind? Check.
- Many animals have very long penises. ‘Nuff said. Sex ed, check.
Hmmm… it’s a different experience going to the zoo with Morgan at 14 years old versus Morgan at 6 years old. Here I thought we would cover biology and animal behavior, and I guess I was right. Sort of. Just didn’t anticipate the adolescent boy’s radar picking up really random, yet sex oriented, fun facts.
And we still have the Wild Animal Park to go! Will the animals be as wild as the ones here at the zoo?
What’s your favorite zoo animal?
Practicing Travel 
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