From Alamogordo To -

 - Zoological Gardens
For, lest you be unaware, the shortened version "Zoo" is what we dub what our ancestors used to call that longer title.
     Alamogordo doesn't really have any part to play here, except that it was part of the background in the development of nuclear weapons.  

Background, meet nuclear weapon

      The reason I raise this subject is because, two days into my excursion to Barcelona with Darling Daughter as accomplice, she noticed that the city had a zoo.  Darling Daughter is not one to impose her will on anyone, and is generally agreed to be a most accommodating if not positively retiring individual, yet when her eyes got big as dinnerplates on reading that word "Zoo" - as a father normally composed of flint and bile, what else was there but -

     Okay, we have kind of jumped the park and entrance and payment and the hordes of Spanish teachers and schoolchildren - mere incidental detail! - in order to view a macaw.  I think.  Think Big Blue And Yellow Parrot and you'll not go far wrong.
     Here an aside.  All during our tenure in the Zoo, there were parakeets.  They flitted overhead, they flew back and forth, they settled in treetops, they had two modalities of communication:  1) Argument and 2) Silence.  They probably annoy Barcelonans by waking up and shrieking in chirp-language at 05:54.

The wretched article

     Are they related to the irritatingly fulsome birds here in Royton, who queue up in the twigs and branches to serenade folks at the bus-stop?  When there is no reason WHATSOEVER to be bright and cheerful on a dank, dark, rank morning when the heavens are indistinguishable from the ocean?*

Birds



A big box o' birds

Where they prep the bird food

Pretty obviously, this first section was all for the birds.  The zoological ones, not the parakeets.  That above was a rather detailed section devoted to bird food, all allocated out prior to feeding the feathered pikers.  The ones in cages, not the parakeets.  Shall I stop harping on about those feathered bandits?  Okay, okay.  Next!          

Kangaroos being lazy

Meerkats being industrious

Your Humble Scribe could have watched these busy little characters all day long, especially the ones that came darting up to the spectator wall, because they just knew someone was going to throw food to them ... despite being signed not to.                     

Excuse me?

Okay, Conrad no longer going on about parakeets.  Is this chap above a legitimate local bird or a zoological specimen who got loose and loves his freedom but hates the lack of free food?  Answers in the Comments, ta very much.  If it is a legit local then - well, they breed some awfully odd sparrows in Spain.                                                                       

Komodo dragon.  Being dragon-ish.

Darling Daughter informed Conrad that the bite of a Komodo dragon is now considered to be highly dangerous, due to the venom it leaves in the wound.  Previously it had been       thought that those who got bitten by these things, and survived, were only suffering from  limbs falling off because they were careless with sterile procedure.  Not so.  Komodo dragons - toxic!                                                                                                               

Here you have a bear, seemingly camera shy as she doesn't have any makeup on, or her eyelashes are crooked, or her hair is still in curlers.                                                      

Here you have Mr's Bear's husband, who is not camera shy at all.  O no, not he!  Why, he doesn't care if the whole world comes by to stare at him enjoying a good dry wallow in a pit, with his favourite bit of stick to hand paw.  World, Mister Bear is taking it easy.      

Penguins, pen-guing.

Seals, sealing

CAUTION!  Not suitable as a domestic pet

This picture doesn't quite get across the bleak, black-eyed sinisterness of this customer, who is a species of crocodile.  Or alligator.  One of the two.  Face it, if one of these is gnawing your face off, taxonomic exactitude isn't going to be high on your list of things to take care of.                                                                                                                    

    Here an aside.  Several of the enclosures and pens were closed, because, here in Barca, it was still technically the winter season, so they weren't really geared up for tourists.                                                         

A green snake.

Baby tortoises.

Though they moved exactly like clockwork toys.  With built-in topple.  To such an extent that there was a sign on the glass saying that, whilst they may fall over, the little dopes soon managed to right themselves.                                                                                 

A wolf

     The wolves were all indoors, apart from this customer, who scornfully turned his back on Darling Daughter and I.  British tourists just don't cut it, apparently.                  

Flamingoes

An alpaca having a dusty wallow.

Okay, Jurassic Park/World/Tourists-Served-As-Dinner Franchise, take a note how a proper zoo keeps the animals in their places: with a nice big deep moat.  None of yer flimsy         electrical cables here.                                                                                                                     

Okayyyyyyy -

A tiger and some lions.

What else do you expect me to say?  "Ooh look a flying saucer!" Technically this above is a pride of lionesses, since lions themselves are lazy rascals who can't be bothered to go out and chase game.  Comes from being King of the Animals, you know: they get a superiority complex about the Divine Right of Kings and expect the food to be brought to them.  Or    they go out and steal another animal's kill, which is jolly unsporting.                                

     There you go, all the thrill of the zoo, and now that's out of the way, that picture above is of Darling Daughter and I waiting at the bus-stop.  Somehow it simply lacks the grim grey dourness of waiting at a Manchester bus stop, thanks to the palm trees.
     Oh - and the parakeets.


Finally -
Because we need a short article to take the whole thing up to the Ton (that being the magical 1,000 word mark that now seems to be the norm rather than the exception, as it once was) I thought we'd feature what we occasionally do at this point - exhibit a strange ship.  Art?

Thus

     This unlovely beast is a cutter-suction dredger, and I believe you can see exactly why it's called that.  Made by Sinoking, so from the Populous People's Dictatorship, fitted for all your dredging requirements.


     And there we have it.  The Ton, and you're welcome.




*  Sorry to go on so.  This touched a nerve.