Great day today. Great weather - like Goldilocks's porridge - not too hot, not too cold. Went to the Philadelphia Zoo - the air quality was good, which seems to be a novelty for Philly. The zoo was packed, and it took around a half hour to get from the central Philly area to the zoo parking. Thank goodness for the GPS, which took us there, and more importantly, took us home. There is a unique, and interesting, central fountain; we saw several animals up close, and Paul was pleased. Actually, we had one of the most interesting visits to a zoo we've ever had, because when we were at the puma (cougar) exhibit, there was a fellow there with a German Shepherd dog. Now, I'm unclear as to how he managed to get the dog into the zoo, as it wasn't a "companion dog" or one in training, but he had on a t-shirt with a police department drug enforcement logo on it, and perhaps, the dog was supposed to sniff out drugs. I have no idea. But one of the cougars spotted the dog, and it was so fascinating to see the behavior of the cougars. The first one dug into the dirt, as if to dig through the glass enclosure (we were literally a sheet of glass away) as if to dig out; quickly, the three other cougars came forward, on high alert. One took the high ground, on rocks near the edge of the enclosure. It was both fascinating, and a bit frightening, because we could clearly imagine this type of interest in the wild. The fellow backed off with the dog, who initially ignored the cougars, but became more animated once the other two came forward, but the cougars continued to spread out, take the high ground, and keep an eye on the dog. They couldn't care less about the people. It was so interesting!

The zoo itself is sort of marginal - all pales by comparison to the Denver Zoo, I think, but it was better than DC - fewer hills and better maintained. I missed the sort of avian enclosure that the Denver Zoo has, and the butterfly pavilian at the local watershed was better than some of what we saw in Philly. But, the animated cougars and closeness of a couple of the other animals made it worth the trip.