Today, we visited Zoo Atlanta, one of the nicer zoos I've been to, probably second only to the San Diego Zoo. We were there when it opened and headed straight for the Panda Bear exhibit. Zoo Atlanta has three pandas: 11 month-old Mei Lan and her parents Yang Yang and Lun Lun. When we arrived, the bears were sort of lounging around, chomping away at some bamboo. It wasn't long however, before Lun Lun roused her daughter and started playing with her. It looked like they were biting and scratching each other, but I guess that's how bears play. We watched the pandas for almost an hour and they were very active and entertaining.
Next, we checked out the gorillas and orangutans. The gorillas are separated into four different habitats. One is a bachelor group of all male gorillas and another features a large silverback with his harem of females and four small, "toddler" gorillas. We stopped by for the afternoon feedings and saw one juvenile gorilla who was doing flips, sliding across the ground and slapping the others on the back.
The exhibits at Zoo Atlanta are very well designed and most of them offer close up views of the animals. Despite the fact that the temperature was about 100 degrees, the ample shade of the zoo kept us from being miserable.
After leaving the zoo, we headed out of Atlanta and toward Brasstown Bald, the highest point in Georgia. I didn't have very high expectations for this stop on the trip, but I was looking at it as an opportunity to bag a state high point and maybe some great mountain scenery. Well, it was a pleasant surprise. We arrived at the summit at about 7:30 p.m. after a short 0.6 mile walk to the top. With the sun descending, the Appalachian mountains were beautifully lit. On top of the mountain is a large visitors center and lookout tower. Normally, I find it annoying when summits are covered with a bunch of man-made junk; but, in this case, the tower was necessary to have any kind of view and the whole structure was so well designed it didn't seem too offensive.
After leaving the bald, we drove on to Dillard, GA to spend the night. Tomorrow, we'll be heading to Sassafras Mountain, the highest point in South Carolina.
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