Day 1: First Flight
Day 2: Just Hanging Out
Day 3: Disney Fun
Day 4: Lego Land
Day 5: Kennedy Space Center
On day six, Tuesday, we took the kids to the Jacksonville Zoo. Alan and I have been here before, many years ago, and I remembered bright pink flamingos, giant gorillas, and gators that were uncomfortably uncontained. There is a lot more fencing around the gators now than what I remembered from the past. :) The kids had a great time, as we expected.
We have 268 pictures from the zoo, but I’m guessing you don’t want to see them all. I’ll post a few favorites here. If you want more, let me know and I’ll put them up on Picasa. Zoos are mostly fun in person, not in pictures.
Welcome to the Jacksonville Zoo!
The first thing we did was take a train ride around the outer perimeter of the zoo. The ride gives you a good overview of the zoo and some behind the scenes views as well.
Lex was excited to take pictures on the train. Unfortunately most of them came out blurry or completely missed the subject! I’m such a dork that I pulled out my cell phone to take pictures of him taking pictures. :)
This is the back of the animal hospital. I thought the giant bath tubs were funny.
Here is a garden where they grow food for the animals.
After the train we just followed the path around the zoo. First up, Africa!
These birds have a wild ‘do!
Look at the way this bird is sitting. Strange.
Lex took a pretty picture of the palm trees.
This is a crazy animal! It has the head of a giraffe and the body of a zebra. It was my favorite.
Snakes! We saw far too many snakes in the zoo. I’m grateful we didn’t see any outside of the zoo though!
Several times I found myself recalling the scene in Harry Potter where he disappears the glass on the snake exhibit. Shudder!
Elephants!
The kids like the elephants.
Lex was taking pictures of the elephants and asked if we wanted him to take a picture of us too. As I type this a lot of elephant jokes come to mind, but we won’t go there!
Lions!
They were resting at first, but then they got up and started roaming about.
We watched the lions for awhile as they paced back and forth by this door. I thought I heard noises on the other side and we were hoping it was feeding time. After awhile we got bored of waiting and moved on.
We stopped to pet and feed the giraffes. That was fun! They have very long tongues! Did you know they clean their ears with their tongues? Yummy!
Bamboo. You don’t see much of that growing in Vermont!
We all had to touch and feel it. It’s very reedy.
Just as the kids were getting antsy we came across a climbable elephant statute. Good times!
Eve trying to pull the elephant!
Lex swinging from the tail.
Then on to South America. The problem with doing blog posts like this, long and three weeks behind is that I tend to forget a lot of the details. We read all the signs along the way, but I can’t remember what any of these animals were called now. Except the obvious ones, of course, like the elephants!
Look at this guy sunbathing. His arms are stretched above his head and his belly is all exposed. He was quite content.
After awhile he turned over and looked right at us with a sour puss face. :)
Eve took the camera for awhile and took lots of pictures of flowers.
The Aviary and the Carousel.
The flamingos were really orange! I was surprised. I guess they’re eating a different kind of shrimp at the zoo.
Kids can’t pass up a carousel. Especially a free one!
Me riding my favorite zoo animal, the okapi!
At the far end of the zoo we found water. Trout River. There’s water everywhere in Florida. It was beautiful.
Pretty family.
The kids read on the map that there was a Play Park at the zoo and about a third of the way along the path they started whining and begging to go to the play park. We kept telling them that we’re following the path and we’ll get there eventually, but they got crabbier and crabbier. At one point I was remembering trips to the Ross Park Zoo and other places that we went as kids and how much we fussed and complained. Sorry Mom and Dad! It’s so frustrating to pay that much money and hear nothing but complaining! In hindsight they complained a lot along the pathways, but thoroughly enjoyed almost every exhibit.
Eventually we found the playground and they had a pretty cool cement slide.
Alan and Lex took a pretend nap on the “spider web” at the playground.
While the kids played I told Alan about my childhood zoo memories. He laughed at me. Shortly after leaving the playground Eve started complaining again and I lost my temper and got short with her, telling her we paid so much money and she’d better stop fussing and blah, blah, blah. I felt dumb even as the words were coming out of my mouth. Alan laughed at me and said, “Channeling your mother, eh?” Sigh.
Just past the playground they had more monkeys, climbing on vines.
Outside the monkey enclosure they had “vines” for the kids to climb on too!
The Great Apes!
We did catch feeding time for the gorillas!
They each got a whole head of lettuce and they were happy! That’s what I should eat for lunch. We were laughing because all four of them settled down well within sight of the viewing window, but with their backs to us. Like they wanted to be seen, but also have a little privacy. :)
Friendly strangers offered to take a family photo for us. Why not?! Eve decided to be a monkey in the picture.
Pretty cardinal
Lex made us and several strangers laugh when we came around the corner to this view and he said, quite loudly, “Wow! Even the monkeys get a cool play structure!”
We hung out here for a long time, watching this family of Bonobos. Mom, dad, and baby, just hanging out.
They all climbed to the top of the structure for a nap in the sun. True to human life, mom and dad laid down and baby bopped around. After a bit dad got frustrated and left, then mom tried for awhile longer to get baby to lie down, but to no avail. Eventually they all gave up and came down.
All smiles
My little monkeys, watching the monkeys.
The kids can’t resist climbing on every statue they come across. Lex has an awesome smile in this picture!
Wild Florida.
Last, but not least, the gators!! Once again they were not moving at all. Doesn’t the water look totally disgusting?! That’s how it was years ago when we were last here.
I guess gators don’t eat turtles. This guy was hanging out in the same enclosure. It looks like he really needs a bath!
The end. We left just as the rain started. Not heavy, but enough that it would have been no fun to be caught in.
I said I’d post “a few favorites” and ended up with 45! Oops! It’s hard to choose just one. :) The kids did a lot of picture taking at the zoo so of the 268 I have, many are blurry, out of focus, or contain no actual animals. Oh well.
On the way home from the zoo we passed a SWAT team on the bridge. Police and news everywhere. One SWAT guy was even on his belly, finger on the trigger of a mean looking gun. I did some serious rubber necking as Alan drove by! Then I pulled up the news website (thanks to their van sitting on the side of the road) to see what was going on. They updated the page several times throughout the evening. Shots were fired under the bridge. Turns out a person living under the bridge (seriously?!) was shooting a pellet gun at people going by in fishing boats. Then she shot herself in the foot. Local yokel stuff. I guess due to the unknown nature of the shots and the difficult access (under the bridge!) they brought out the whole battalion immediately.
The rest of the night was spent eating ice cream and watching TV at the hotel. Aahh, vacation.
Day 7: A Drive Along the Coast
Day 8: Heading Home
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