The ATL

HELLO!! I have said this before, but when you get to the pictures....double click on them so they are big and you can really see them for what they are. Ivan is so incredible, but until you double click...you have no idea!

Went to Atlanta this weekend to see my buds, Jen and Michelle! Had a blast! Took off half a day on Friday so I could get on up there and avoid the traffic....HA! Atlanta traffic sucks and I hate it. I am a capable driver, but it is the other idiots there that drive like bats out of hell. Sorry...they are nuts!

Anyway..got there safe. We did some buffalo wings for din-din and played "Rummikub". Totally addicting! It is like rummy but with tiles instead of cards. Super fun!

Then we watched "Emma" and crashed. By that point it was midnight or even later.

Got up the next morning...got dressed and headed out for the Atlanta Zoo. I am not usually a zoo fan because I feel sorry for the animals, but Atlanta does it right for the most part. There were parts where I felt sorry for the animals and I struggled. The tiger was stressed, one panda was stressed, one orangutan left because this stupid boy kept yelling at him/her and the parents didn't say a thing to the "little darling". Here is the one pic I got of my orangutan (yes! I claim him/her).


The orangutans were my favorites. There were 2 babies that I could not get a close enough shot of with my camera. I needed a higher powered lens to get them. But they would wrap up in each other and do somersaults. It was awesome! Here is their Momma:


Then we got to see the gorillas. AWESOME! Here is one of the babies:


Here is mama getting some leaves:


Then, my absolute favorite at the zoo was Ivan, the silverback gorilla. WOW!! He is so impressive and strong and scary and cool. He was born in 1962. Double click on the picture so you can see him a little closer. WOW!


In a disappointing part....happy to see my pink flamingos, but the stench coming off of them was awful. I don't want them to be stinky....but dangit they were...BUT still pretty with their little red knees:


So now on to the pandas. There was a long stretch of viewing area where one panda was up on a rock asleep. Then there was a VERY short area where the mama panda was going nuts eating bamboo while baby panda was down in the pit sleeping on a grate. Apparently that is where baby likes to sleep. I got in there and had to hold my camera over the barrier to get a shot of the baby:


The announcer lady said that mom panda was happy little baby was asleep so she could eat. Here is mama panda:


Then we went into this alcove and there was this little room where another panda was trapped. It made me so sad. He/she did not have a lot of room to do anything and he/she kept going to the door and slapping at it to get out of the enclosure. He/she wanted to get away from the prying eyes and chaos. He/she was not in the open like the others. He/she was in a room smaller than my bedroom with some tree trunks and not much else. Very sad. Here is the pic I did get of the poor panda scratching his hiney on a trunk. Bless it, he wanted out of that space so badly:


I will have more later.....I am sleepie-pie and gotta go!