This past Memorial Day weekend, we were very fortunate to have friends who gave us day passes to the zoo.
Due to practical constraints, we had to make our visit in the early afternoon. The daily high was *merely* 95 degrees, but we only made it two and a half hours or so at the zoo.
It was my first time at a zoo in many years, as with my wife, but I think it was actually the baby’s first time (zoo lights don’t count, amiright?).
The zoo designers clearly wanted to wow from the first, as the first big exhibit was the giraffes, with crazy vultures, birds, and bovines with HUGE FUCKING HORNS. It continued from there.
There were lots of fun little exhibits along the path, with desert rabbits, frogs, and others. Probably the friendliest animals were the otters, who clearly wanted to jump their restraints and hang out with everybody who came up, but stuck to simply chirping away and swimming instead.
The only animals who seemed really unhappy to be where they were were the andean bears, who usually live in a cloud forest. They were panting. The komodo dragons, for their part, all seemed to be hiding under the rushes in their highly humidified (ie, misted as hell) enclosure.
Besides that, the zebras seemed totally at home, and the African Wild Dogs were just doing their thing.
It was a lot of fun, and an excellent end to our long weekend. After finally wilting in the heat, we stopped at Rainbow Donuts near our house. I had an excellent apple fritter, my wife a donut of her own and a bubble tea, and the baby loved his peanut donut. And coffeeeeeeeeeee!!!!
2
