Travis and I had a great day at the zoo for Teacher Appreciation Day! With ID, teachers got in free (allowed to bring up to 3 people with you). The last time we were at the zoo was after the Zoo Run I did in October. Flash back:
We had a great time, but my legs were so tired that I couldn’t walk around as much as I would have liked. So, when one of my co-workers told me about Teacher Appreciation Day, we decided if the weather was nice, we would go! And the weather couldn’t have been more perfect for a day at the zoo! We also ran into a friend from grad school classes, some of my co-workers, and one of our friends who works at the zoo. We got there just after the zoo opened at 9:30 and headed for the brand new penguin enclosure. Penguins might be my favorite zoo animal and the Kansas City Zoo has a really nice enclosure for viewing penguins, lots of different perspectives. We watched them for quite sometime.
Then we saw the elephants, Travis’ favorite.
We decided to head to the back of the zoo to avoid the morning crowds, so we walked back to Africa. The cheetah was right up next to the glass, stalking all the little children…Seriously, it had no interest in adults only kids.
Next was the warthog. I started singing The Loin King, and Travis pretended to not know me.
Any place with water had turtles out sunning. So many turtles!
Next we walked across the suspension bridge to monkey island.
Monkeys!
I enjoyed these birds hairdos.
Vultures! Such big, scary birds
Big turtles, my brother’s favorite
Giraffes! Unfortunately they are seen best from the sky ride and we didn’t want to pay to do that, so we just admired from afar.
Behind the giraffes, you can see the Zebras. They were even farther away.
Crocodiles. This one looked ready for lunch.
Hippo. They looked and sounded pretty funny when they would come out of the water and shake their ears (much like Uno).
Peacocks. Right before I took this picture, the peacock had its tail up and fluffed.
They have places were you can overlook some of the old enclosures. Its sorta creepy.
After we got through Africa, we decided to have lunch. I got my usual concession stand favorite, nachos!
Polar Bears! It was around noon, so many of the animals were starting their afternoon naps in the shade, much like my hubby is right now…
Orangutan
More monkeys
Tiger!
Its hard to see, but the kangaroos don’t have a fence around their area. There was a kangaroo right behind the trees only a few steps away from us.
Guess what day it is?! Travis started to call me a middle schooler. Just practicing for my future job!
Llama
Sea Lions
More good hairdos! These two monkeys started to fight right after I took the picture.
More monkeys! These monkeys started to do some very adult things about 3 minutes after I took this picture. Decided not to take a picture of that…
Thanks KC Zoo! We had a great day! Looking forward to coming back soon. Now on to an weekend of writing our LAST graduate paper! Almost done!
Sorry your eyes are closed Travis! Maybe you will start taking my selfies more seriously.
Sammie Payne 