Every first Wednesday of the month the San Francisco Zoo has a free zoo day and so that was where I went with the kids on Wednesday. We met up with some friends and between our three families, we had 15 kids. The children had a great time looking at different animals and running around like wild boars. The latter is always a hit with my children.

Here are the kids looking at penguins. I was a bit surprised that penguins are very smelly. They smell very fishy (the penguins, not the kids).

Grizzly bears swimming in the water. My younger son was afraid that the grizzly bears would come and hurt him, but I reassured him that the strong glass barrier would protect him.

It was just magnificent to see the giraffe.

Even though we saw lot more different animals, the ONE thing that captured my children’s attention and delight was the train. They giggled and totally lost control of themselves when the train went by and puffed a lot of steam onto them. It was a blast! It’s funny that my children can enjoy watching the train go by without getting on it. What a simple pleasure, not to mention my fatter wallet for not having to spend $3/kid for the ride.