Where the Wild Things Are

Today I woke up and decided that it was a good day to do something wild--the zoo. I called a friend and said I'd pick her up in an hour. By 10:15 we were entering "North America", where our favorite animals were the sleeping polar bear, sleeping black bear, hiding foxes and wide awake, in your face buffalo!


The real thing.


The not-so-real thing, but more interactive.


A watering hole along the way. And Popcorn could do it by himself!

We also trekked to the Sonoran desert and saw a roadrunner, saguaro cactus, snakes everywhere and a gulia monster. Shakespeare's favorite animal of the day was there: the ocelot.

We ended our morning at the mid point where they have a carousel and the tram! Yea! for air conditioning. While taking the tram back the driver gave us a little bit of trivia about the NC Zoo: it's the largest walking zoo in North America. (no kidding--5 miles of walking, with hills included).


Shakespeare was riding backward on the polar bear, but managed to go the right way for this shot.

After lunch, we headed to Africa. The giraffe, zebras and ostrich were our first stop. We saw plenty of apes and monkeys, birds and slithery things, but the elephants were closed for renovation--tummy tuck? We also enjoyed the rhinos and a bird that sounded more like a siren.


Here is Gem with a giraffe.




Chimpy-back ride


Three chimps.


Tree hugger.




Finally, at 5, we left the wild and went to McDonalds for ice cream--in the air conditioned car. My little monkeys felt right at home today.


Out of Africa.