A Day at the Zoo

We spent Tuesday at the Denver zoo . My sister-in-law Amy got us a zoo pass for Christmas, and Tuesday was a beautiful day (78 degrees, can you believe it!) so we took Patrick for his first visit to the zoo. Denver has a very nice zoo. It is large, but not so big that your feet ache when you are done. When we first got to the zoo, I had to feed Patrick, and while we were sitting on a bench we could hear the lion roaring really loudly, but we couldn't see him because of a sign in the way. But when we got done, he was still sitting on his rock, roaring away. You can kinda see him in this picture behind me.

This is a great bored picture. It doesn't look like it in this picture, but Patrick really did enjoy the zoo. He liked having lots of things to look around at, even though he isn't big enough to know what animals are. He also enjoyed the sunshine and being outside.

Another cool thing about this zoo is that they have several peacocks that just roam around the zoo. I don't know if other zoos do that, but it is fun to have a peacock cross in front of you while you are walking. Rumor has it that you can pick up tons of peacock feathers if you show up early in the morning.

A lot of animals were out and friendly today. We got to see the gorillas and orangutans up close and personal.The orangutans were putting on a rather intimate show, if you catch my drift. The gorilla was sitting right next to the glass and staring Reed down. We decided not to take a picture of him because he already looked angry. Some kids came over and were really excited to see him, but he stood up, stared at us, and then ran across the room, hitting the glass as he went. It was a little startling, but fun! We didn't get to see the polar bears this time, but here is a picture of Reed standing next to a polar bear to see how he measures up. Last time we were here, we watched the polar bears play for like 30 minutes. Maybe we will see them next time. We also got to see the seals eat dinner and hear the sea lions barking really loudly. The sea lions wanted someone's attention, and they sure got it. We saw the giraffes, and they had a baby giraffe who also wanted to do nothing but stare Reed down, which Reed thought was a little creepy. Sorry, the picture is really dark because we were inside, but he kept staring at us for like 15 minutes until we left.

The zoo was a lot of fun, and weather permitting, we are planning on going with Amy on Thanksgiving day. Amy really likes to go to the zoo on holidays because it's practically empty and you don't have to deal with the crowds. What a great idea!