SoCal Vacation! [NSF56K]

[Akhlut]

Me, my wife, and my son took a vacation back in May to visit my wife's grandparents and visit San Diego Zoo, Wild Animal Park, SeaWorld, the San Bernardino Mountains, and the malls. While there, I took pictures of the first four (why take pictures of the malls and urban sprawl?), so, here are a select bunch of pictures. They aren't the original pictures; I've run them through Picasa 3's editing, but that's mostly just to clean up lighting issues rather then any gross shooping.

For Example:

Before.

After.

Pictures from the San Bernardino County Museum

They have an enormous collection of taxidermy on display. For instance, this is a fisher.


Virginia opossum.


Bighorn sheep ewe, as I recall.


Bighorn sheep lamb.


Weasel and a ground squirrel.


What appears to be a kit fox.




Mule deer, as I recall.


Bobcat and a quail.


Kangaroo rats.


Gophers of some sort.


Our friend the porcupine.


Another fox.


Raccoon.


Desert tortoise.


Pronghorn!


Coyote.


Blurry badger is blurry.


Peccaries!


Argali sheep ram, a native of Central Asia, and largest of the ovids.


Dall sheep ram, a relative of both the big horn and the Argali.


Mountain goat, more territorial and dangerous relative of all three of the aforementioned ovids.


Chuckwalla, a desert iguana.


Rattlesnake and some desert lizard.




More desert reptiles.


Caribou.


Caribou, wolf, and musk ox.


Musk ox head.


Moosey-moose-moose.


A shot of some beavers, including an underage one. Giggity!

Okay, yes, I'm going to hell. Moving on now.


Giant fossil horse femur.


Giant fossil mammoth toe.


Regular sized fossil bighorn sheep vertebra.



Giant fossil horse tooth in matrix and its descriptive tag.



Awesome rocks.


Spider utilizing the natural camouflage of glare!


Millipede using the same amazing camouflage!


Leaf insect!


Sleepy gecko.



Awesome green gecko.


Living chuckwallas.


Hippo head in a cage!


Iguanadon skull cast.


Sabre-toothed cat skull cast.



DRAMATIC TURTLE!


A historic manor near the museum. (photo by my wife)



Purdy flowers. (photos by my wife)



Wild lizards on the grounds. (lizard on the post is by my wife)


Some sort o' big wheeled device. (possibly by my wife, I forgot)

Will post more later! Got to touch-up some more and get everything onto photobucket. Especially since there are going to be at least 100 more photos I want to put up.

[Akhlut]

Over 30 views so far and no comments? Assholes.

Ah well.

Vacation continued!

Firstly, more taxidermy:


Alaskan brown bear.



This polar bear was huge in life; about 9 feet tall.


Seal.


Arctic fox. The taxidermy on this guy was not exactly top notch.


Grizzly bear.


Mama cougar and cub.


Cougar.


Bison.


Prairie chicken.


Black Bear


Rocky the flying squirrel!


Bighorn sheep ram.





The bug collection!













My wife next to a pine tree's cross section. Keep in mind, she's 6ft tall (1.83m)




Taxidermy of birds!


More birds.


I think you know what they are.








Birds birds birds...



My wife in comparison to albatrosses.


Assorted eggs. At least in person, looking through rows and rows of eggs is surprisingly compelling.











Elephant bird egg. Thing was fucking huge.


My hand for comparison.






Very beautiful eggs; they look like polished stones.



Carolina Parakeet and Passenger Pigeon eggs. A little bit poignant, as I was so close to the eggs of birds that were so prolific, but were absolutely obliterated by humans. I wonder if they contain any usable DNA in them at all (and, yes, I know they drain the eggs to keep them, but I wonder if there is anything at all in there for cloning).


A cactus that I liked.


Awesome statue of a condor.



Orange Grove right next door.

And, soon, the San Diego Zoo! It's just taking a goddamn long time to get all those pictures ready!

[Akhlut]

The one and only San Diego Zoo, one of the greatest zoological parks upon this sphere.


The Flamingo exhibit, with some sort of Egyptian bird in there as well, and a great blue heron. I forgot what the grey bird was, except that it was some manner of Egyptian bird.









Monkeys of assorted types.








Gibbons.





Pygmy hippo.





Aviary! Lots of cool tropical birds in there.








Gorillas










Reptile House



Gabon viper






Dwarf caimans

(not by the reptile house proper, but it's here for thematic concerns)

Orangs





Guinans by the orangs


More SDZ pictures to come! We took a shitload of pictures there! I think this is close to half of them.

Also: comment!

[Phantasee]

There's just so much to look at, I forget what I was going to say by the time I get to the end.

[Darth Fanboy]

Did you see the new Galapagos Tortoise exhibit they added in?

[Akhlut]

To Phant: you can always open up another tab for the responses and keep track of them like that.

Did you see the new Galapagos Tortoise exhibit they added in?

I don't recall seeing the tortoises, but that doesn't necessarily mean it wasn't there. I didn't take any pictures of it, I don't believe.

Which reminds me: I'll add more shit soon! Tonight or tomorrow, hopefully.

[Akhlut]

YET MORE PICTURES OF THE SDZ!


Zebra



African antelopes.


Polar bear



Water fowl

COMMENTS, DAMMIT!

[Phantasee]

Seriously, man, I'm glad you guys had a good time and saw a lot of stuff, but this thread went past NSF56k to not safe for anything less than FiOS or something. My computer chokes on this thread every time.

[Akhlut]

I'm editting some things to make this easier to load for you peeps. Best be grateful.

Will get more pictures up eventually-ish.

San Diego Zoo!

Some sort of bush pig








More birds




Fishing Cat (pictures taken by my wife)




Tapir


Tiger




Okapi


River Otter



Stellar's Sea Eagle

[Akhlut]

Hmm, the more I look, the more it looks like I'll just need another thread and will have to just link them all to each other so they're a unified whole. Damnation!