San Diego Zoo - Starting the Day

I had learned from my first visit to the San Diego Zoo twenty years ago that a ride on the bus tour is the best place to start. This zoo is a large zoo built on hills. Even able-bodied people need to use strategy to most efficiently explore this place. They have escalators and an express bus that will take you from the bottom of the central valley back up to the top. The goal is to walk down and ride up. Plus the bus gives you an overview of what the zoo has, where the different animals are, and how to get to the areas you are most interested in. We were lucky - the size of the waiting area tells me that sometimes one has a long wait. Our wait was short. The buses are double deckers with the outside viewing on top. Naturally I wanted to be on the top for a better view. The waiting area for the outside is a little deceptive - there is another waiting area above - so once you get to climb the stairs you have one more wait. The buses arrive fairly quickly - maybe 5-15 minutes apart.

The seats on the top of the bus were tight quarters for full sized people loaded with tripod, camera vest, camera with long lens, etc. But we managed. While we were waiting, I cleaned the outside of my lens - something I am doing regularly these days in the futile hope of preventing dust spots and fuzz in my shots. The only photo I was tempted to take on the ride was when we passed the giraffes. The lens would not focus . ..it was cloudy . . . I thought it was the young boy. But I kept checking and he really was not in the frame. Hum . . . . . I looked at the lens. ARGHHHHH! There was condensation on the INSIDE of the lens. Visions of a frustrating day immediately ran through my mind. Thankfully, Henry noted that it WAS diminishing. By the time we were off the bus, my lens was still clean and the condensation was gone. Now to begin our exploration!