- Peter, Paul, and Mommy
As it is spring break this week, the kids and I decided that a trip to the zoo was in order. So early yesterday morning, we loaded up our van and headed off to Detroit!
In true my-kid form, we were all equally as enthralled by animals not meant to be on exhibit as we were with the exhibited ones. Happy minutes were spent watching a teeny tiny snail slime its way over a turtle's chin, or a spider make its way over a sign, or observing the just molted, white, twice-as-big-as-his-shell cockroach.
After lunch, a friendly and handsome peacock took us for a stroll, showing us much of the outdoor primate exhibit before guiding us to the primate house, where he left so he could go help other patrons.
The primate house (and every other building in the zoo, really) was quite fascinating. The Detroit zoo has a very healthy volunteer force, and most of the volunteers that we talked to had spent enough time in their respective areas that they had LOADS to tell us about the personalities, preferences, and habits of the animals. So it was a lot of fun just chatting and watching, and learning things.
It was just warm enough for the giraffes to be in and out of their house, and the male seemed to be enjoying the outdoors. But the female mostly stayed inside, so we spent a bit of quiet time warming up and resting with her.
The lions, tiger, rhinos, and anteaters were all active and exciting to watch, as were the zebras. A pair of them were....rather frisky. "And thus begins the circle of life," I said in my best nature documentary narrator voice, to be answered with cries of "MOOOOMMMMMMMM!" from my slightly shocked children. The lemurs also decided to come out and play, and there seemed to be enough to have a dance party. So I started doing my best lemur-dance, and sure enough, they joined in! A hopping good time, let me tell you! The kids were thrilled.
The seal pictured up at the top was a real showman, despite being blind. He spent the whole time we were in the underwater tunnel swimming upside-down toward the tunnel, then swooping around in a flip to swim the other way. There was another one nearly twice his size that swam right over our heads a couple of times!
We did make sure to visit everything, but didn't take too many pictures. Penguins were delightful, as usual, and we learned that they will be building the biggest penguinarium in the country for them soon. We sat carefully and watched quietly in the butterfly house (and showed random small children how to do the same,) looked carefully for birds in the aviary (and pointed them out to random small children,) and had a fantastic time in the amphibian house....again pointing out creatures to random small children. I think my whole family likes telling random small children about animals. It's a thing.
We finished up at the reptile house, where Amber had to take photos of every visible snake, and we all had a grand time asking random small children if they could see the display animals. I got a good lesson on how to identify a viper from a particularly enthusiastic pair of young snake fanciers.
By three, we'd all had enough of walking around, so we bought our obligatory souvenir t-shirts and headed off to my grandparents' house for a quick visit before driving home.
We stayed all day and I'm getting sleepy. Sitting in the car getting sleep sleep sleepy. Home already and I'm sleep sleep sleepy 'cause we have stayed all day.
- Stell
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