Day 2 la trip
Here is part 2.. yes image heavy .. :)
Gin and I dropped off Stella and made it back to the hotel, worn out from the days events. It was about one am and we were in our porn lit hotel room. I mean really, you could see nothing one 40 watt bulb in the room and the bathroom light and that was it. We needed to get up early in the morning and still had our tickets to change and we were (because I am a good friend) going to the LA Zoo. Gin was beside her self with excitement. We woke up at 7:30 and blearily headed to pickup Stell.
It is during the drive that I tried to figure out why I had been a little testy the last 24 hours. I realized I had for the most part NO diet crack and no caffeine. I was in a big bad need at the moment. We went for brunch - pancakes and fruit for me and about 6 small cups of coffee. I felt much better with a load of carbs and a jolt of caffeine.
We needed to find the Zoo http://www.lazoo.org/,… okay easier said then done. Looking at the map, I thought I knew where to go. I was sooo close to getting us there, and with a tiny bit of divine intervention we made it with really no wrong turns. It looked like Sunset would run into 5 and that would take us to the zoo. I started to doubt we were heading in the right direction and took a left and another left to get turned around and viola.. a sign for 5.. *cheers* and we were off to the Zoo, We arrived around 10 I guess.
Gin called Delta to make sure seats were available for the 5:40 flight. It took the customer service rep a while to understand we just wanted to know if there were seats, since we could not book them, but eventually he said there were seats, but s/he refused to give us the quantity of seating available. So, we went to enjoy the crazy zoo creatures. The zoo was not too crowded when we arrived. We saw some ducks and my favorite flamingos. The flamingos were wet from an early rain and they were not pleased to have the wet feathers.
I love the flamingos.. they were all too busy drying off to be concerned with all the people gawking at them. They are such oddly assembled animals.
We wandered around the zoo, and it really was not my day for maps.. the Zoo is under such reconstruction that the handy map they hand you at the start of your visit did nothing but get us more lost as we wandered around the zoo. And really to try to retrace our steps.. would be a joke, since we retraced our steps and got turned around and were consistently distracted by the shiny. Stell and Gin decided to cast CSI: NY as animals.. So, I took on House, with less successful results. Since this is the zoo.. we needed to look at the plants as well.. I guess you gotta know Gin to understand the logic.
Ohhh phallic
OHHHHH a TREEEEEE
Some .. well lots of the animals were feeling frisky on this Feb day.. but some of them were plum tuckered out…. Okay okay it is a Meerkat.. but he was cute … hiding from us
Mac.. the brown bear.. was happy to sleep the first time we saw him.. he woke up on the second trip
And we were quite excited to run across the filming of CSI:LA ZOO… there was something afoot in the Zebra habitat.
Other Animals were feeling frisky. But you know before we head over there… lets talk about the Howler Monkey who thought it was his and his rival’s divine right to annoy everyone. There were screaming at each other and echoing at each other and I felt the need for more caffeine to dull the pounding they were causing in my head.. but the Tiger.. he had the right idea. The tigers lived a mere stones throw from the Holler Monkeys and it was evident that he did not approve of the choice of accommodations, you could see by the twitch of his ear and his posture that he really wanted to jump the fence and have a monkey flavored snack
.
The Peacocks.. were in a very showy mood,, all over the zoo.. trying to appear as seductive as possible..
Then we get to the Giraffes who were feeling very flirty.. it was fun, we talked to them for about ten minutes.. yes actual talk.. or maybe it was just me who decided that I needed to have a conversation with all of the animals.. there was one young female Giraffe who was very interested in talking to us.
Mac woke up
And happy monkeys in the monkey condo -
The lions.. they were very frisky .. I am making a separate post of vids.. and I will put the Lion, bear and flamingo vids there .. the lions are funny. We walked up to the lions and the male lets call …. Him Bob.. and the girl .. lets call her Rose. So Rose struts by Bob and he gets all excited and gets up, she runs off to hide behind some bushes, and then Bob waits for her and finally gives up and walks away.
Well Rose can’s have that… so she walks by him again and sticks her butt in his face. Bob responds by licking and standing up, Rose walks away again. Bob, is not so forgiving this time and follows her, Rose likes the attention and walks by him again, once again rubbing her butt in his face, this time he gets a little taste. She turns her head to look at him and they lock jaws for a second. She scampers off again, he is frustrated. She walks over again and he ignores her, so she heads to an empty spot and tries to entice him with the “Look at me chase my tail and almost lick my own butt dance.” He watches in amusement, not falling into her trap.. he waits, We grow bored with the cat and mouse .. errr Lion and Lion dance and head off to find more animals. I want to call these gazelles.. but I am probably wrong.. here it was one guy to 15 females.. he was enjoying what he had to chose from.. at first we did not see him
.
But he popped up from behind some rocks
I thought I took a picture of it .. but I can’t see it..
He walked up to each of the girls and smelt their butts in an effort to pick a mate of the hour .. he was still deciding when we left him to his wanton ways. I think that covers the zoo… all the pics - 141 of them are here: here
I will mention.. if anyone saw Wonderfalls.. there was this wax lion that talked. The first time I went to the Zoo, they had them.. same color and everything.. and So I bought one for me and Karen. This time I added a giraffe and koala to my slowing growing collection. The sign asks to collect all 12.. so I am 1/3 done. The Giraffe was in honor of the great life conversation I had with the giraffe, and I think Wilson is a Koala. He looks all cute and fluffy on the outside, likes to eat lots and has claws that are shown when riled up and of course is dark and twisty behind the fluffy exterior.
We all jumped back in the car, needed to take Stell home and get us to the airport. It was a little after 1. The call to Delta needed to be done at 2:40. We decided if we were not at the airport by 2:30 we would call and try to fake it. They had said we needed to be AT the airport, but you know at this point we had called so many times and had a bunch of stories who knew what was right. Took Gin “I don’t eat fried food ever.. give me lots of fruit and veggies and yes sushi as well” to McDonalds.
We knew were we running late and there were not very many choices, and after the previous day when she tired Japanese Fast Food and rules it inedible, no chances were going to be taken. She was pleasantly surprised with the fresh fruit and veggies and grilled chicken on the menu and with glee ordered lunch and a snack for later. Back on the road and at this point I am feeling pretty confident that I can get us to the airport with little distress, but yeah .. *note to self : next time you travel get better maps*
We are cruising and it seems to be taking a while, but we negotiate the whole freeway thing and have decided to go to the short term parking to get the ticket then gas up the car and return it. I am already paying for an “extra” day so might as well. We see signs to the airport but umm it is getting late. Gin calls and we sit on hold of course for 10 minutes. A very pleasant person ( I am guessing here, since Gin called, and she did not yell or grind her teeth too badly) picked up the phone, by this time we have the conversation down, she goes through the whole thing and there is discussion back and forth, and I get off at the airport exit, ready to get to the airport, it is ten minutes till 3, so we really are cutting it close. As well are looking for the gate so we can park and get the tickets, Gin hangs up, we have tickets *cue little victory dance* and just need to pay. Apparently the person said we cut it close and just made it. Not sure what that means, since we called at 2:30 and talked to them at 2:40 which was 3 hours before the flight, I am still wondering how early they let you call.
Anywho.. we had tickets, need to fill up and drop off. We found the drop off for the car, which in retrospect seems like a small miracle. We pull up and there are no - kidding at least 100 people doing the same thing, the turnover and size of the fleet is just impressive. A check in lady walked up and scanned the car.. and NOPE no charge for an extra day.. Michelle does second dance of joy. We wait what seems like a lifetime at the ticket counter. They were very slow and I was getting anxious to just SIT DOWN and rest. Finally, we got to the counter, explained the entire story to him to get the tickets and he noted that we did have tickets, but the flight was almost full. Seriously, it went from “there are plenty of seats available” to “umm the flight is full, let me see if I can find you a seat” I took the center “exit row” and Gin was a few rows ahead of me, we also had NO reserved seats for the next leg, but I thought we would be fine, yes she of all the optimism was feeling it. We landed in Salt Lake and I was starting to be done..over it all. I was ready to be at home in my bed sleeping and not talking to humanity. We got seats next to each other for the final leg of the trip and we spent most of it making each other listen to music from our iPods.
We landed on time - I think- in Seattle and off to find the car. I drove Gin home, dropped her off and wearily headed home. As with all my fan trips thus far, had a great time, packed too much into too little and met new people. I would have loved to spend more time with Gena, she was a kick and we immediately bonded and contrary to popular belief we spent more time talking about travel, museums and Torchwood, then RSL and House. Now.. to go catch up on the rest of my life. The vids are here: http://michelleann68.livejournal.com/87772.html
.. seriously I would check them out - the tail chasing and the bear getting a snack,,,, good times.
Gin and I dropped off Stella and made it back to the hotel, worn out from the days events. It was about one am and we were in our porn lit hotel room. I mean really, you could see nothing one 40 watt bulb in the room and the bathroom light and that was it. We needed to get up early in the morning and still had our tickets to change and we were (because I am a good friend) going to the LA Zoo. Gin was beside her self with excitement. We woke up at 7:30 and blearily headed to pickup Stell.
It is during the drive that I tried to figure out why I had been a little testy the last 24 hours. I realized I had for the most part NO diet crack and no caffeine. I was in a big bad need at the moment. We went for brunch - pancakes and fruit for me and about 6 small cups of coffee. I felt much better with a load of carbs and a jolt of caffeine.
We needed to find the Zoo http://www.lazoo.org/,… okay easier said then done. Looking at the map, I thought I knew where to go. I was sooo close to getting us there, and with a tiny bit of divine intervention we made it with really no wrong turns. It looked like Sunset would run into 5 and that would take us to the zoo. I started to doubt we were heading in the right direction and took a left and another left to get turned around and viola.. a sign for 5.. *cheers* and we were off to the Zoo, We arrived around 10 I guess.
Gin called Delta to make sure seats were available for the 5:40 flight. It took the customer service rep a while to understand we just wanted to know if there were seats, since we could not book them, but eventually he said there were seats, but s/he refused to give us the quantity of seating available. So, we went to enjoy the crazy zoo creatures. The zoo was not too crowded when we arrived. We saw some ducks and my favorite flamingos. The flamingos were wet from an early rain and they were not pleased to have the wet feathers.
I love the flamingos.. they were all too busy drying off to be concerned with all the people gawking at them. They are such oddly assembled animals.
We wandered around the zoo, and it really was not my day for maps.. the Zoo is under such reconstruction that the handy map they hand you at the start of your visit did nothing but get us more lost as we wandered around the zoo. And really to try to retrace our steps.. would be a joke, since we retraced our steps and got turned around and were consistently distracted by the shiny. Stell and Gin decided to cast CSI: NY as animals.. So, I took on House, with less successful results. Since this is the zoo.. we needed to look at the plants as well.. I guess you gotta know Gin to understand the logic.
Ohhh phallic
OHHHHH a TREEEEEE
Some .. well lots of the animals were feeling frisky on this Feb day.. but some of them were plum tuckered out…. Okay okay it is a Meerkat.. but he was cute … hiding from us
Mac.. the brown bear.. was happy to sleep the first time we saw him.. he woke up on the second trip
And we were quite excited to run across the filming of CSI:LA ZOO… there was something afoot in the Zebra habitat.
Other Animals were feeling frisky. But you know before we head over there… lets talk about the Howler Monkey who thought it was his and his rival’s divine right to annoy everyone. There were screaming at each other and echoing at each other and I felt the need for more caffeine to dull the pounding they were causing in my head.. but the Tiger.. he had the right idea. The tigers lived a mere stones throw from the Holler Monkeys and it was evident that he did not approve of the choice of accommodations, you could see by the twitch of his ear and his posture that he really wanted to jump the fence and have a monkey flavored snack
.
The Peacocks.. were in a very showy mood,, all over the zoo.. trying to appear as seductive as possible..
Then we get to the Giraffes who were feeling very flirty.. it was fun, we talked to them for about ten minutes.. yes actual talk.. or maybe it was just me who decided that I needed to have a conversation with all of the animals.. there was one young female Giraffe who was very interested in talking to us.
Mac woke up
And happy monkeys in the monkey condo -
The lions.. they were very frisky .. I am making a separate post of vids.. and I will put the Lion, bear and flamingo vids there .. the lions are funny. We walked up to the lions and the male lets call …. Him Bob.. and the girl .. lets call her Rose. So Rose struts by Bob and he gets all excited and gets up, she runs off to hide behind some bushes, and then Bob waits for her and finally gives up and walks away.
Well Rose can’s have that… so she walks by him again and sticks her butt in his face. Bob responds by licking and standing up, Rose walks away again. Bob, is not so forgiving this time and follows her, Rose likes the attention and walks by him again, once again rubbing her butt in his face, this time he gets a little taste. She turns her head to look at him and they lock jaws for a second. She scampers off again, he is frustrated. She walks over again and he ignores her, so she heads to an empty spot and tries to entice him with the “Look at me chase my tail and almost lick my own butt dance.” He watches in amusement, not falling into her trap.. he waits, We grow bored with the cat and mouse .. errr Lion and Lion dance and head off to find more animals. I want to call these gazelles.. but I am probably wrong.. here it was one guy to 15 females.. he was enjoying what he had to chose from.. at first we did not see him
.
But he popped up from behind some rocks
I thought I took a picture of it .. but I can’t see it..
He walked up to each of the girls and smelt their butts in an effort to pick a mate of the hour .. he was still deciding when we left him to his wanton ways. I think that covers the zoo… all the pics - 141 of them are here: here
I will mention.. if anyone saw Wonderfalls.. there was this wax lion that talked. The first time I went to the Zoo, they had them.. same color and everything.. and So I bought one for me and Karen. This time I added a giraffe and koala to my slowing growing collection. The sign asks to collect all 12.. so I am 1/3 done. The Giraffe was in honor of the great life conversation I had with the giraffe, and I think Wilson is a Koala. He looks all cute and fluffy on the outside, likes to eat lots and has claws that are shown when riled up and of course is dark and twisty behind the fluffy exterior.
We all jumped back in the car, needed to take Stell home and get us to the airport. It was a little after 1. The call to Delta needed to be done at 2:40. We decided if we were not at the airport by 2:30 we would call and try to fake it. They had said we needed to be AT the airport, but you know at this point we had called so many times and had a bunch of stories who knew what was right. Took Gin “I don’t eat fried food ever.. give me lots of fruit and veggies and yes sushi as well” to McDonalds.
We knew were we running late and there were not very many choices, and after the previous day when she tired Japanese Fast Food and rules it inedible, no chances were going to be taken. She was pleasantly surprised with the fresh fruit and veggies and grilled chicken on the menu and with glee ordered lunch and a snack for later. Back on the road and at this point I am feeling pretty confident that I can get us to the airport with little distress, but yeah .. *note to self : next time you travel get better maps*
We are cruising and it seems to be taking a while, but we negotiate the whole freeway thing and have decided to go to the short term parking to get the ticket then gas up the car and return it. I am already paying for an “extra” day so might as well. We see signs to the airport but umm it is getting late. Gin calls and we sit on hold of course for 10 minutes. A very pleasant person ( I am guessing here, since Gin called, and she did not yell or grind her teeth too badly) picked up the phone, by this time we have the conversation down, she goes through the whole thing and there is discussion back and forth, and I get off at the airport exit, ready to get to the airport, it is ten minutes till 3, so we really are cutting it close. As well are looking for the gate so we can park and get the tickets, Gin hangs up, we have tickets *cue little victory dance* and just need to pay. Apparently the person said we cut it close and just made it. Not sure what that means, since we called at 2:30 and talked to them at 2:40 which was 3 hours before the flight, I am still wondering how early they let you call.
Anywho.. we had tickets, need to fill up and drop off. We found the drop off for the car, which in retrospect seems like a small miracle. We pull up and there are no - kidding at least 100 people doing the same thing, the turnover and size of the fleet is just impressive. A check in lady walked up and scanned the car.. and NOPE no charge for an extra day.. Michelle does second dance of joy. We wait what seems like a lifetime at the ticket counter. They were very slow and I was getting anxious to just SIT DOWN and rest. Finally, we got to the counter, explained the entire story to him to get the tickets and he noted that we did have tickets, but the flight was almost full. Seriously, it went from “there are plenty of seats available” to “umm the flight is full, let me see if I can find you a seat” I took the center “exit row” and Gin was a few rows ahead of me, we also had NO reserved seats for the next leg, but I thought we would be fine, yes she of all the optimism was feeling it. We landed in Salt Lake and I was starting to be done..over it all. I was ready to be at home in my bed sleeping and not talking to humanity. We got seats next to each other for the final leg of the trip and we spent most of it making each other listen to music from our iPods.
We landed on time - I think- in Seattle and off to find the car. I drove Gin home, dropped her off and wearily headed home. As with all my fan trips thus far, had a great time, packed too much into too little and met new people. I would have loved to spend more time with Gena, she was a kick and we immediately bonded and contrary to popular belief we spent more time talking about travel, museums and Torchwood, then RSL and House. Now.. to go catch up on the rest of my life. The vids are here: http://michelleann68.livejournal.com/87772.html
.. seriously I would check them out - the tail chasing and the bear getting a snack,,,, good times.