What Happened Was

We were behind the scenes in the giraffe area, and we had the opportunity to feed them a delightful treat -- something called "leaf eaters crackers" (or something like that). The giraffes LOVED them, and actually we got to try the crackers, too. They were actually quite tasty -- just a hard, dry cracker that tasted vaguely of rye. Anyway, it wasn't till the very end that we noticed that one of the female giraffes had a bloody nose. And it wasn't until we had actually left the area that I noticed that some of that bloody nose residue had gotten on my shirt.

Well, turns out that the folks at the Santa Barbara Zoo do not mess around in a moment like this. Keepers had to be notified, very important personnel were called, my shirt was scrubbed clean (in the elephant area!) by a plastic-gloved guy, and then the offending shirt was placed in a biohazard bag. It was all quite dramatic, and very fun. It was just part of the adventure, and I actually didn't care that much about the shirt. (And yes, let me just say that I was wearing two shirts at the time so when the top one came off I was still clothed.)

We also got to pet a Humboldt penguin! And we visited with the Asian elephants' keepers, who taught us quite a bit -- like the difference between Asian and African elephants, the fact that elephants have a set of 4 teeth, and that they lose their teeth 5 times. We didn't get to pet the elephants, I'm afraid, but we did hear about their painting techniques, and touched the rubberized flooring in their barn. We tried to taste their pellet-type food, but it was un-crunchable with our pathetically small teeth.

We also went behind the scenes into the zoo's "Ew" area, where we met several snakes, a gigantic skink, a tree frog and other lizard-type creatures.



As for my shirt, the stain did come out, but I'm a little sad about it.