Brewer's House of Music: We went to the Zoo......

Maura's start to the Post......

Last Weekend was Pioneer Day. "What is Pioneer Day", you ask? Well, it is a Utah state holiday and a day celebrated by members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints to honor the pioneers who suffered great persecution crossing the plains to get to a place of peace where they could worship without fear.

Anyways, Ben had a 3-day school weekend, but unfortunately still had to work. We had a great weekend though! We thought it was about time we took Merrilee to the zoo. Lately she LOVES anything and everything that resembles an animal. Any book with an animal, any dog she see's on a walk, any picture of an animal on a poster or sign...she loves. So Saturday we geared up and headed up to Salt Lake Hogle Zoo.

Ben finishing the post.....

So....we went to the Zoo. I think it was a lot more work then anything else. For the first hour we went about 100 yards trying to keep the kids happy and fed. I like the zoo, at least as a kid I did. I was really excited once we got in because I thought "Cool I love seeing exotic animals and those funny monkeys!"

So first we go past the monkeys...all asleep. No funny monkeys. Then we went by the elephants. The baby elephant was moping around, but the mom was in the back corner with only her butt sticking out. (She was in the same position 3 hours later when we left the zoo). The rhinos were, well, rhino-y, really not doing much. Then we went to the Leopard, tiger, and wolf area! Nothing. The tiger just laid there, the leopard was hiding in the shade, and the wolf was just hiding. Then we saw the giraffe. Well first, we went into their waiting pen inside because it was air conditioned. Merrilee pushed the stroller up and down the aisles. She got mad when we left. It was really funny.

The Giraffe's were cool. They didn't do much either, but the fact that they were so tall was cool. So after all that, we came to the camels. This was the day saver for me. The camel was walking around with its two funny humps flopping around. Even Merrilee kept saying, "What's that, whats that!?" over and over and over again.

I guess we choose the part of the day that animals sleep. (Isn't that all of the time? We saw a really cool bird show and the babies made it through it ok. The birds would fly right over our heads! I was grateful I didn't get pooped on, because there was a lot of pooping going on. I think it was worth the $9 a person to watch Merrilee chase a bird around and see the cool camel. I've concluded that Zoos are for kids and that parents get joy out of watching their kids interact with the animals. It would have been fun to watch Merrilee interact with the animals...if they were only awake. :)