End of the Oregon Trail - Day 9

So, we spent our final day in Oregon at the Oregon Zoo in Portland. The zoo is huge, and took up most of the day (we arrived at 10am and left at 530pm, with very sore feet). Despite the blistering heat (94F on the thermometer), we were still able to see almost all of the animals... the lions were hiding out of sight, as were most of the chimpanzees, but we got to see pretty much everything else. One of the things we noticed was that the giraffes (they have two) were far more friendly with each other than the trio of tusslers at Wildlife Safari in Winston, OR!

The glass-fronted enclosures allow you to get nose-to-nose with many of the animals. You will recall I said the temperature was 94F, so the fact all the people in this photo are fully clothed in jackets and long pants should be a dead giveaway that I am poaching stock Internet photos to illustrate my text (if you haven't been following along the "Oregon Trail", we forgot the cable to connect our camera to the laptop, so I've had to "borrow" other peoples' photos to fill the spaces between the text!

At C's request, we stayed at the main amphitheater after eating our lunch to watch the "Wild Flight" presentation... you know, the one where the sharp-taloned birds of prey fly literally millimeters over your head on command from their trainers? The one where they tell you to be sure your small children are seated during the flying portion of the show, as the birds of prey can sometimes get their food confused with your small children? It was an amazing show, capped off with J and C making a small cash donation to Pierre, the "take your money out of your hand and put it in the donation box" vulture!

The heat got truly oppressive when a blanket of high cloud formed about 2pm and the humidity went through the roof. The poor polar bear looked just like this when we saw him about 4pm... like he didn't even have the energy to roll into the water. Luckily, they had "cooling stations" spraying misting water throughout the Zoo, which made for refreshing breaks on a regular basis.

And now, the unanimous winner of "Cutest Animal at the Zoo", with 4 first-place votes - the ocelot! The Zoo has two of these cuties, and they are absolutely adorable... kind of like a gorgeous cat the size of a small dog... the best of both pets!

At the end of the (looooooonnnnggggg) day, we soothed our sore feet and legs with cheesecake at the Cheesecake Factory in Portland, before heading north and west back across the border (aka the Columbia River) at Rainier/Longview to spend the night in Kelso, WA, where we spent our first night. With the circle of Oregon complete, we will now be heading for home on Wednesday, with hopefully (clouds, go away) a stop at the Johnston Observatory at Mt St Helens on the way home!