Zoo

It has been absolutely gorgeous here this week. Like spring was really and truly here for good. Temps were in the seventies, all of the lawns suddenly were green and our city’s many flowering trees are in full bloom. It was a great time to take the second graders to the zoo. Or so you’d think.

Today it was 40 degrees, misting and very, very windy. Sigh. Fortunately smart people designed this zoo. They realized that a city with sub-zero temps in the winter and summer highs in the 100’s needs a zoo with lots of indoor displays. Entire buildings are devoted to desert, jungle, oceanic and primate habitats. It’s really a fabulous place, unfortunately it’s also quite a drive, so early this morning we loaded up overly excited children, reluctantly shoved back into their winter coats, and headed out. I had Faith’s friends, Ashley and Danielle in my group. Here they are, (Faith, Ashley, Danielle from L to R):

The

closest

zoo to us, the one we go to for quick trips, is a nice little Children’s Zoo with camels and monkeys and small animal displays. There a some gibbons there that all of the local children have learned you can “talk” too. Gibbon noises are extremely easy to imitate and very loud. If you make their noise loudly enough, over and over again they will reward you by whooping back at you. The girls were really eager to try out this trick on new gibbons. Turns out they are fluent in Gibbonese and can speak it to anyone. I just with that this hadn’t attracted quite so many irritated looks from people who didn’t appreciate their skill.

These three girls are not meek or mild. No, no, no. These are loud, rough and tumble, boy-chasing, boldly laughing girls. In fact, mothers who were shepherding groups of boys were looking at me with pity. Whatever distance I walked through the zoo today, they easily doubled by running back and forth. All three fell asleep on the long bus ride home which would have been an adorable picture. I wasn’t on the bus though - darn? - so I’ll end with this one instead.