Week 6 - "Hike" 2: Oakland Zoo

I am not even sure that the Oakland Zoo qualifies as a hike, but if you go with a kid (and you'd probably feel a tad silly without one), you will get a lot of exercise walking around the Zoo. This is largely because you will have to retrace your steps about 250 times over the course of the visit. I should have brought a pedometer to see how much walking I did. We started out looking at the penguins, walked to the camels, then watched a giraffe scatter a group of impala, just to pee (for easily 3 full minutes) on where they had been sleeping. Then we walked up the hill to see the lions. There were 3 lions out, and I have never seen them up so close. They have a nice enclosure with lots of room, and it was gorgeous out. They were just rolling around in the sun. We walked down to see the meerkats and zebras, and then up to the elephants (diaper change, juice). Back past the giraffes, past the wild boar and down to the children's zoo. We walked around and around in there, brushed the goats, and then walked up to the chimp exhibit. We stopped by the tiger (a 3 year old informed me that the bears weren't out) and then went home. Since the zoo is so hilly, we got a great walk in. My son crashed in bed as soon as we got home, which means that we walked a lot.

As zoos go, I think this is a nice one. SF zoo has some janky depressing exhibits, but most of Oakland's are newer and cleaner, and the newer ones are larger, and less heartbreaking. The animals all look healthy and move around a lot. This is an easy walk but you can get a good amount of exercise. The bathrooms are not obvious (maybe I didn't have to go) but there are a couple of snack areas with water and yogurt for sale.