Roars and Snores

I petted a rhinocerous, I fed a giraffe, I touched a hedgehog, I walked at least 100 miles. Our camera battery died. We had so much fun. I'm tired as a person could possibly be, but in a very good way. I have to admit I was more than a little nervous at the prospect of spending the night at the zoo. Doubly nervous since we didn't know until we got there if we'd be in with the reptiles and amphibians or in the saltwater aquarium. Triply nervous because my darling husband agreed to take and be responsible for another kid whose parents could not go (and there may be more on this in a later post).

It all went well. My worries were for naught. I'm so glad we went and I'm so glad we took O because I know this is one of those things all the boys will remember forever. Possibly one of the stories they'll tell their grandkids. They'll embellish it, of course.

When we got there, we unloaded and divided into groups. I thought we were stuck in the reptile house group, but somehow ended up in the aquarium group because the numbers were off or something. That was sooo cool. Well, except for when someone popped up about an hour after everyone went to sleep and yelled 'THE EEL IS OUT." and all the kids ran to the front of the tank and started screaming about it. That was exciting, but not exactly "cool" for us old people.

After setting up, we had pizza and our group of 60 split up into another 3 groups. Our group started in the small animal exibit. There we got to touch a snake, a hedgehog and look at an exotic bird up close. The zoo people told the kids all about them. I spent most of my efforts keeping the kids focused so I missed a lot of the talk. Then we went on a "night hike" and to check out the animal habitats and see who was "up." We saw the elephants and one of the lionnesses out in the dark. Then she showed us where they keep the animal's food. The kids were most excited by the mice. Both the dead ones on a glue trap in the grain room and the frozen ones in the freezer across the hall. Yep, frozen mice - individually frozen with their fur on and packed on a little styrofoam meat tray. ICK!

Then came the really cool part. We went to see the rhinos and were allowed to reach into the cages and pet their tusks. Their tusks feel really strange - kind of soft and smooth, but hard and rough all at the same time. We got an up-close look at some lions and some tigers. Not just close, but so close that if we reached out we could have touched them. We were, however, very careful not to reach out and touch them! Next, we got to feed the giraffes. Giraffes (at the zoo at least) eat cut up bananas and apples. Sunshine kept dropping his fruit because he couldn't manage to hang onto something that disgusting long enough to carry it two feet from the bucket to the giraffe. Wow. Giraffes are actually quite friendly and seem like they'd be really fun to have for a pet if you had a large enough yard. The yard would have to have extremely tall trees, but they'd sure be fun to have around!

I'm pretty sure I'm forgetting something here. When that was all done we went back to the little dining deck and had some animal crackers and water for a snack then it was off to bed. Which involved walking back uphill to the aquarium to get our stuff, down to the bathrooms and uphill again to the aquarium. By this time my legs could barely move and I was too tired to do more than tell the kids to get themselves into their sleeping bags and pass out.

This morning we had breakfast, then had a full 3 hours to tour the zoo before it opened to the public. If you ever decide to do one of these zoo overnight things, definitely do it on a Saturday night. That was a huge bonus to the whole trip.

I have a couple of people who took pictures for us since our camera battery died about 20 minutes into the trip and if they actually do send them I'll post them.