Saturday, February 24, 2007

2/24/07

Well, today made up for all the badness. I spent half the day at Jacksonville Zoo, and I would have spent more time if my camera battery hadn't run out. Next year I'm taking Lukas here. I can see why it's rated one of the top zoos in the country.

I got there about an hour after it opened, parked in the front row, walked across the street to the ticket window, and within 5 minutes I was looking at animals. Very different from the MN zoo, which seems to be made more for joggers and bikers for the distance you have to walk to see anything (if you're lucky). Granted, the enclosures here are smaller than at MN, but except for the leopard, they didn't seem to be cramped. And there are so many animals here, and they're so easy to see. And it wasn't at all crowded with people.

They have 3 African elephants, and I was so thrilled to hear one of them rumble. They are such NEAT animals.

The walkway that goes by the giraffe area goes up to their head height, so people can actually feed them and touch them.

The leopard had an adequate enclosure with a tree to climb, but he just paced back and forth in just one spot. That was a bit sad, but what a beautiful animal! And the black panther was sleeping half in the sun, with one hind foot up in the air. I was about 6 feet from him (behind glass). They have BIG feet!

A really nice thing about this zoo is that the birds are so easily seen. They have one area that's covered with mesh that you walk into, and you're right in with the birds. The peacocks were free to go wherever they wanted; they weren't in an enclosure at all.

Just a very, very nice day. It was in the mid 70s and sunny.

Oh, the last picture is of a cruise ship along side the road, and in back of it is a suspension bridge that I was VERY happy not to have to go over.

We solved the generator problem for a while. I bought a bigger power inverter to plug into the cigarette lighter and that powers Lukas' Playstation and TV while we're driving. When we get back to MN I'll call around & try to find someplace to get it looked at. We're thinking about picking up a battery and putting in under one of the seats, getting a small solar charger for it, and hooking up a power inverter to it for future travels. That way we wouldn't have to run the generator all the time when we're driving. That will save on gas.

Tomorrow we're going to Savannah, Georgia. We have an appointment Monday morning with Camping World to get our propane leak found & fixed. Then we can have hot water again, and run the furnace! It was downright cold this morning, only 37°.

Hopefully, that will be the last problem on this trip.