Weekend on the Wild Side

Compared to the small town of Page where we just moved from, Amarillo is kind of a big city. Granted it is a small city as far as cities go, but it has a lot of amenities that were not available to us before. A perfect example of a venue you can find in a big city is the local zoo.

I had heard that there was a zoo in town, and we had thought about making an outing there several times. For one reason or another, we had just never made the time. Last weekend, Theo was out of town for a PT conference in Houston, and I found myself looking for ways to entertain the boys. The zoo seemed like a good option. So, I loaded up the kids and we drove about 20 minutes across town. Upon our arrival, we we started to climb out of the car and prepared to head in. Just then another family was pulling out of the parking lot and stopped by our car. They informed us that the zoo was closed. What?! There was some Halloween thing scheduled for that night, and so they were closed to prepare.

The following weekend, Theo was again going out of town, this time to the AZ state cross-country meet. This again seemed like a good time to find something fun to do with the boys. Back into the car and back across town we went. The weather was not great. Granted, the wind blows here almost all the time, but it was especially robust. As we arrived, dark clouds started gathering in the sky. We kept our fingers crossed that we wouldn't get wet.

We got into the little zoo, and I was happy to see that there were very few other people there. Maybe the weather would be in our favor. I had prepared the kids ahead of time to keep their expectations low. I had looked on the internet to find out what to expect, and I knew it was a very small zoo. As we started to wander around, the kids and I were enjoying our visit more and more. There may not have been a huge number of animals or an enormous expanse of acreage, but it was great! All of the animals were surprisingly active considering it was the middle of the day. We saw lots of the big animals you would expect, and there were virtually no other people to compete with.

The boys were not all thrilled to have their pictures taken in front of the animals. You can make your own guesses about who that was from the snaps. Even though I thought the animals were gorgeous, I am not one who wants to look back on a bunch of animal centered photos. Squint if you must to make them out, they are in the background. All in all, it was a nice afternoon out and about with my guys. It didn't even rain on us. We will definitely visit again.

Spider Monkeys

Two ginormous anacondas coiled up together

Big ole lizard thing



Cheetah looking thing



Tiger

Lion

Black Bears

Panther

Coyotes

Lemurs

Wild Child