Richard Lowe's posting about the San Diego Wild Animal Park brings back fond memories.

My first visit there was in 1976 (good grief - 30 years ago almost to the day!) I was there on my honeymoon (of my first marriage) and I felt completely transported. I was no longer a few yards off Route 5 but on a cliff over veldt, watching gazells and wildebeast drinking from the stream, while lions lurked in the tall grasses.

Then to the shows -- they had the most fantastic bird show (believe me I'm NOT one for bird shows but this was great! Especially the bald eagle that was trained to grab a 5$ bill out of the hands of a man in back of the amphetheater and a vulture who "walked" across the stage (you've never seen anything as funny as a vulture walking. Of cource I guess a vulture could probably say the same thing about a human being flying).

Anyway - it does bring back fond memories, and it is probably by second favorite thing about San Diego ( my favorite being the Church of Scientology of San Diego ) ranking higher than the climate, the Tory pines on the cliffs overlooking the ocean, and the San Diego Zoo all of which are pretty high on my list of cool things.