The Dallas Zoo

Last Friday (9/23) we went and checked out the Dallas Zoo for the first time. We had free tickets from a certain deal-of-the-day company that laid off my husband in August, and decided we might as well use them. Free fun is the best fun, right?! (Of course, we left with a new rhinoceros toy, a new rhinoceros t-shirt, and a $25 dollar zoo lunch in our bellies, so it wasn't exactly free, but whose counting, right? Lol)

When we got Dresden dressed in the morning we were going for a sort of cool toddler-hipster vibe with his jeans with on-purpose holes in the knee and his ironic bird-wearing-scarf-with-snail-on-its-back Threadless t-shirt, but as we were watching him walk through the zoo, we realized he just looked like a McGoo tourist. Maybe an ironic hipster McGoo tourist? Okay, yes, let's go with that.

Here we are on the tortoise sculpture. The tortoise sculpture was near, you guessed it, the tortoises (shock!), and there was a 7-foot tall man trying to FEED HIS MAP to the poor tortoises, saying, in the most stereotypical Elmer Gulch type southern accent "Brennnda look, he's tryn ta' eat the mayyy-upppp ("map", with a dipthong)! That's so funn-ayyy, Imunna keep on tryn' ta feed him the may-uppp!" It was head-shakingly sad. People, seriously. Those poor turtles. Anyway, moving on! 

As you can see, Alex didn't take many pictures of the wildlife, but there were some cool things to see. My favorite was the harpy eagle - that thing was HUGE! Then and there, I decided to devote my life to the protection of harpy eagles. And then I was over it. Still, I'd never seen one and it was really, really an interesting bird.

Instead of taking pictures of the animals, he took pictures of Mr. McGoo eating a snack...

And me wearing the McGoo hat...

The new part of the zoo was the Giants of the Savannah. We didn't get any pictures of the actual animals, but this sign really does a great job at capturing the essence and grandeur of the whole thing. (Nice, Alex. Nice.) (Are you wondering WHY I even bothered posting this post? I kind of am...)

Looking at the penguins. 

If you sort of squint, you can see the blurry one swimming above his left pointer finger. (If you stop reading here, I don't blame you - lol).

 Some McGoo bench warming...

Having a chat while waiting to see the cheetah demonstration. 

***Alex has just informed me the reason we don't have any pictures of the majestic cheetahs (really, it was a cool demonstration), or any of the animals, is because he refuses to shoot pictures of animals through glass or fences (NOW he tells me!). So...that pretty much rules out my doing any zoo posts in the future. Sorry guys...sigh...***

Okay, FINALLY, an action shot! Feeding the giraffe some lettuce. That was pretty awesome. We may go back and head straight to the giraffes just so he can do it again. We've fed them before at Cheyenne Mountain Zoo in Colorado (the coolest little zoo ever - definitely worth checking out!), but he was six months old then, so this will be the time he can remember. I love that giraffes are gentle enough that we can interact with them like this.

All in all, it was a nice little trip (despite the lack of pictures) and Dresden had a lot of fun. He did get to see his precious rhinoceros fairly up close, so he was satisfied (he said specifically that he was coming to see the rhinoceros that day, so we had to make sure it happened). There were also quite a few babies to see, which is always fun. We will have to make a trip back to the FW Zoo again soon to compare. Which would y'all choose? Dallas Zoo or FW Zoo? Go, talk amongst yourselves :-)

Love,

Cassie