New 52 | Week 35: Nighttime Zoo

Going to the San Diego Zoo’s summer special hours “Nighttime Zoo” has been on our Summer To-Do list for a couple of years.  This year we had purchased a zoo membership earlier in the year, so it was the perfect summer to finally check out Nighttime Zoo. 

We took the day off work on Monday (8/22) and planned our zoo visit.  Todd readily admitted that he had no idea what “Nighttime Zoo” was.  I told him they have special shows at night, and the zoo is open late so you can see nocturnal animals that you can’t see during the day. 

On the way to the zoo, we stopped at Ortegas Mexican Bistro in Hillcrest for dinner.  One of our favorite places for happy hour because of the special pricing.  Costs almost half as much as a normal meal!

We got guacamole, shrimp tacos, and steak tacos, plus diet Cokes.  They were fast with the refills too.  Awesome place, awesome experience again.  Plus our good parking karma was on still, because we found parking right across the street again!

After dinner, we headed to the Zoo for Nighttime Zoo. 






Upon entering, there was a steampunk robot band playing.  They were real people pretending to be robots, playing music and singing.  I thought it was pretty cool!


We walked down the Fern Canyon to get to another part of the zoo.


We didn’t’ know this until we got there, but the Nighttime Zoo theme this year is China.  So we saw this fun Chinese acrobat show.




But the coolest part of the night was seeing the Big Cats at night!  We got to them right at dusk, and they were so active!  We saw mountain lions…


He played with his big block toy.


This one looked a little sad.


We saw jaguars.  This one was still napping.


We saw snow leopards.  Look at the markings on this one!




Check out how big and long the tail is on a snow leopard! 






And we saw lynx. 


We left around 8:00PM, as the night fell.  I just loved these lanterns hanging in the trees!


First time experiencing Nighttime Zoo was definitely very special.  Loved that we got to see the big cats!  It’s so cool to have the annual zoo passes, because then you can go for a couple of hours and not feel like you’ve missed out.   :)

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About This Project

New52 is a project started by Peppermint and I to encourage each other and others around us to try something new every week in 2011. The "new" each week doesn't have to be something big. It could be something as simple as ordering a new dish instead of old standbys at your favorite restaurant. It's simply opening your heart up to NEW possibilities.
Don't worry if you're late getting started on joining in. It's totally OK if you miss a week here or there. We encourage everyone to keep an open mind about trying something new. This is a life project, and a photography/blog and even scrap challenge if you wish. If you participate this week, please leave a link to your blog post in the link list below.