Day Fifty-Two: Apparently, 'D' is for Toucan. Who Knew?

Since we didn't have as much planned out as we probably should have, we decided to do two things on our list. Luckily, they're in the same complex, so it made it super easy and convenient to make it a successful day. After starting our day at a relaxed pace, we decided to go to the San Diego Zoo first. We saw everything there, except for the reptile house! We saw their two polar bears (who are twins!) and five or six different elephants. One of the elephants is missing part of its ear because of a Hollywood mishap (he was in a movie and something happened to his ear. I couldn't understand what the guide was saying.) We saw the foosa from Madagascar, and the lemur they have to keep away (everything I learned about Madagascar, I learned from the movie). And we saw a group of meercats. One was sunning itself while the others were trying to get at something on the other side of the glass. There were two peacocks roaming around- one almost flew and knocked a lady over!) Other than the peacocks, there were a ton of birds there. They have at least three different aviaries there, including one for just hummingbirds. Of course, we saw some otters! They were so cute! They were swimming around their tank, rolling around with each other. Last, but not least, we saw the giraffes. They had four adults and one baby. Little party trivia: did you know that giraffes' tongues are blackish in order to prevent it from getting sunburn as they try to reach for the highest leaves? Interesting.
After the zoo, our second stop was to Balboa Park (home to HS XC Nationals). This park is huge!! There are around 30 museums there, including the San Diego Natural History Museum, a golf course, a rose garden, a cactus garden, and the Zoo. And that's only the part that we saw! The architecture on the buildings is amazing. Most of them are in the Spanish style. The carvings are so ornate, it was very impressive. I think my mouth dropped as we walked by them. It was getting late, so we didn't spend too much time here. We got back to the car with no problems. We headed back to camp to clean up and pack up. It is now bedtime. We have an early day tomorrow!