Penguins and Bongos and Addax, Oh My!!

As you’ve probably guessed from yesterday’s “bear foot”, another zoo trip was made during my June trip to Missouri.  There was a tiny window of good weather on the 26^th; it only got up to 89F!  Sis, Big J, and the babies had an outing to the zoo.  Sis asked if I would like to come along. 

Well yeah!

So off we went…stopping first at “The Donut Shop” on Lemay Ferry road   (http://thedonutstopinc.net/id1.html ) for a yummy but not so nutritious breakfast.  The “cinnamon globs” are wonderful!

Just inside the south gate is the seal fountain.  The kids like watching that as Sis got the sunscreen out to spray them down.  The passing train was exciting too. 

Today’s visit was up to “Red Rocks” where most of the hoofed animals are. 

Little Bird and I stopped at the Marlin Perkins Plaza.  “Mr. Marlin” rocked as the curator of the zoo in the 60s and director emeritus until his death in ’86.  It wasn’t unusual to see him walking about the grounds and he was very friendly to visit with.  This I know…  J

Then we were off to look at animals.  Little Bird loves the giraffes most of all.

But we saw plenty of other critters.  From left top: addax, Somali wild ass, okapi, and the bongo. 

The kids think they are “big” now and don’t want to use the stroller anymore.  But of course they tire out… tho not as quickly as you’d think!  Little Hoss took his break up on Daddy’s shoulders. 

Even tho it was a nice day, it did get a bit warm walking on the tarmac.  The kids (little and big) had a good time cooling off at the misting fan.  Wouldn’t you love to have such a thing for yard work? 

We wandered down to the Flight Cage (one of the exhibit halls from the 1904 World’s Fair).  It’s now done up as a cypress swamp, which is pretty cool.  Little Bird loved the mosaic outside the gate.

She studied this art piece for quite a bit.  She enjoyed the textures on it.

From there we headed over to “Penguin Cove” (or Penguin CAVE as Bird calls it).  The excitement was high as we waited in line to go in.  I was pretty excited too… the room is cooled with 47F air and I was getting a bit warm.  LOL 

I hadn’t been in there before (the lines are usually pretty long).  Not only was it comfy… it was fun.  Notice the Rockhopper penguin in the bottom left photo (the one leaping out of the water, the other is a King penguin).  Well, that little guy had the crazies and was all over that tank; much to the irritation of the King penguin who just wanted a nice quiet swim.  The kids loved his antics.  I think I’m going to have to preview “Happy Feet” to see if it’s OK for the babies.

Another section has puffins.  I’d hoped to see some when I was in Scotland but they had already migrated.

Not a good shot but it’s kinda cool.

Time for the kids to take a break from walking, so we went over to the carousel.  Little Bird picked out the zebra (which was her second choice but alas, the giraffe doesn’t go up-and-down).  Little Hoss wanted the gorilla back on the other side.

Pure delight.

This carousel has some of the neatest animals I’ve seen.  It’s called “The Conservation Carousel” and is of 64 zoo animals that are classified as protected or endangered.  The hand-carved animals are really beautiful.

We rode the train a LOT.  Both kids love it and it was really nice to be able to sit for a bit.  We went around 3 or 4 times. 

Little Bird held on to ‘her ticket’ (actually just a stub) and showed it at each stop.  The nice ‘station conductors’ pretended to punch it for her. 

We finally made our last stop at the South Gate drug our tired and hungry selves to the car to head off for a sushi lunch. 

It was a really great morning!