A Day at the Zoo

We continue on with our Thursday Adventures. That's the day we spend with E.Boy, giving his mama time to relax and we have yet another opportunity to LOVE (some might call it spoil) our oldest grandson. E is now asking to "go on an adventure". Not every Thursday is a big deal, but........

We all got a "tattoo", that's what E calls it

We learned all about elephants.  I have to tell you that we haven't been here since E's mama was under 10 years old.  I just couldn't stand to see the animals all locked up.  They have made HUGE improvements at this zoo.  The animals have a much better home.  It does make it difficult to see some of the animals though.  Still, it is so much better for the animals. The docents are very entertaining too. Wonderful place to visit for all ages.

G.Pa got reprimanded by the Gestapo zoo people for putting E up on the railing.  We were all "shooshed" for being loud in the quiet zone.  It seems the animals don't like noise and we are all to be quiet while walking through the area.  Yeah, like that's a good idea with a gazillion kids passing through.  We did learn the hand sign for the coyote which means to be silent.  Oh, and we were not the only people to be corrected.  There was a whole lot of eye rolling and snickering going on, directed at the zoo help....and a whole lot of reprimanding by the zoo help.

There's this tunnel with an observation window at the end so you can get a close up view of the meerkats.  E wanted me to go in there but there's no way I was going to do that unless he needed medical help.  I would need to crawl on my belly and probably not be able to move my arms.  Not something I will ever want to do.  The children LOVED this...as we all waited for them to come back out and there was nothing any of us could do to get them out because none of us could easily fit down the tunnel.

The giraffes are always a hit.  There were gazelles in here too....working on making more gazelles.

This is little fountain stream in the snake playground.  The maintenance guys were working on this so of course E took his cowboy boots off in a nanosecond and played in the water.  There's a concrete serpent with white snake eggs and metal embedded insects.....sounds gross but it's very cool..and the children LOVE to climb all over everything...the children who aren't playing in the water supervising the repair work.

Very cool bear display and the bears were kind enough to be up close and personal.

G.Pa even bought tickets to ride on the chair lift to take a tour of the zoo....which was very cool....and enabled us to view many of the animals that were hidden from street view.  This is the only way we could ever see the sleeping lions...oh, and the mating camels.  Do you think they smoke a Camel afterwards?  Do they still have Camel cigarettes?

When we were finished at the zoo we drove home, stopping at McDonald's in Castro Valley...which was an adventure too.  We hadn't been to a McDonald's in ages.  It hasn't changed that much, except the menu is much more confusing with the added items and menu deals.  We bought a big order of McNuggets, one small fry and "tap water" which they had no idea what that was and we ended up with Sprite which we tossed.

E Boy was in need of a long nap....so were we!  I can hardly wait to see what we come up with next....