Road Trip: San Diego Zoo

It's not strictly L.A., but it does involve navigating through traffic on the 101: Taking a day trip to the San Diego Zoo.
[Editor's Note: We hope you enjoy this guest post from Gothamist's Executive Editor, Jen Chung, who kindly put together this photo post for LAist readers while she was in town. Jen:I was dopey enough not to include my captions (bad Jen!) but they are up now!]

There are a number of animals to visit at the zoo. Will it be pandas? Or koalas? Perhaps a monkey?

The polar bears are great fun to see, because what are polar bears doing in Southern California? Here, one eats a yam.

Another bear was quite the showman, bouncing a ball....

...and later finding a bucket, proudly showing the zoo's visitors.

The giraffes happily roam, in search of some leaves to eat.

Koalas happily inhabit interior spaces, lounging on eucalyptus branches, having a splendid day.

And the best part of going to the San Diego Zoo would be the pandas, naturally. [We recommend that you go to the zoo early and that you hit the panda exhibit first, because by noon, the line gets very long.]
The San Diego Zoo has various animal cams that let you visit them from your desk. Check out the polar bear cam, elephant cam, ape cam and panda cam.