Seattle Vacation: Day 3 …

… Happy 60th birthday, me!

And what a fantastic birthday I had, too!

We decided to celebrate my birthday at the Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle.  We knew that they were closing early (3:00pm) for an employee event.  We got there at 10:30 am so we thought that we would be able to get through the zoo in plenty of time.  But little did we know that we would have to be pushed out of the zoo at 3:00!!  Ok not literally pushed … but we were there until they closed at 3:00pm!  We were there so long (I’m not complaining!) that we didn’t have time for much else today.

This zoo is amazing and we had such a great time.  And as you can see I took way too many pictures!  So I’m posting not one but two collages … see Extra for the second one.

I was really impressed with the care and environment of this zoo.  The animal enclosures were all very well done and you could tell the zoo staff take a lot of pride in their work here. 


One of the most amazing things that happened today can be seen in my main collage.  As we were coming down one of the trails we saw a pileated woodpecker (upper left pic) going to town on a fallen tree branch.  We thought he/she would immediately fly off as we moved closer.  But, no!  We were able to get closer and closer taking picture after picture.  And WE had to finally move on or we would never get through the zoo in time! I’ve never been so close to a pileated woodpecker before and it was a thrilling experience. 


Also picture in the main collage are from upper right: A golden weaver, Mandarin duck, Humboldt penguin and a ruby throated hummingbird.  The pictures in the Extra photo are clockwise from upper left: A birthday selfie with Richard, jaguar, grizzly bears Fern and Juniper, a lioness, komodo dragon and a zebra.

When we left at 3:00 we headed to a botanical garden to see if we could find any hummingbirds.  Sadly, no hummingbirds but we did check out the Ballard Locks nearby. 


Then it was time to return to Issaquah for my 60th birthday celebration dinner.  We found a great burger place and ate there.  It wasn’t fancy but it was delicious.  We were pretty tired by this point as it was a very full day so we returned to our hotel for the rest of the night.

I really had a wonderful birthday in the best of company.  Love you, R!  Thanks for making this a great 60th birthday!

Backblipped: December 4 … yes, December! And it’s about time, too!