8.13.2012

Visit to the Minnesota Zoo

Last weekend, the weather finally became cool enough to venture back to the zoo.  Our first (and only trip) was cut short due to run, and then we've had nothing but ridiculous heat since.  There's no worse place than a zoo when it's hot and you have a 4-year old, is there?

First stop:  bears.  And boy oh boy, did we get a show!  They have a den that has one glass wall, and these two bears (there are 3 in all) came in right as we walked up, and we were able to see some interaction you don't normally get to witness.  This picture is of one bear cleaning the paws of the other bear.  It made the bears seem much more "real" somehow.

We were even lucky enough to watch the trainers work with the bears a little.  Their intent is to train the bears, along with some other animals, to voluntarily come up to them (still in the enclosures) and voluntarily get blood samples taken, which is MUCH better for the animals in the long run.

Gotta get my mug in these shots somehow :)

My favorite place is the family farm.  They have 6 dairy cows that you can pet, and they have a milking demo (which we missed).  We saw baby pigs (as in 2 weeks old), grown pigs, goats, horses.....it was just such a wonderful setup there.  You can ride a tractor too!

farmer Izzy :)

One of the coolest things they had was a dinosaur exhibit.  This is one of the reasons we wanted to get to the zoo, because we knew it wouldn't be there too much longer...it's one of those traveling exhibits.  I mean, LOOK at the detail in this thing!  Even the eyeballs were moving!  Very impressive


Aug 5 2012 - trex prep from Jenn Trunk on Vimeo.

Izzy, of course, was terrified.  And me, being the wonderful parent I am, made her stand in front of it so we could get a picture.


A little dinosaur dig interactive exhibit.

And we got to see the "baby" moose up close.
We had a GREAT time there.  And we left just as a HUGE group of people were arriving for a company picnic.  The line to get in was over a mile long!!!  Whew....glad I finally took my own advice and got up "early" that Sunday!

1 comment:

Rob Monroe said...

Love that you made her pose by the thing that terrified her - I would have done the same! Looks like a fun zoo, for sure!