Memphis Zoo

After some confusion, writing and re-writing. I’m finally posting my blog. Sorry it was such a long time! Okay let’s try this again:

When we lived in Millington we took Zoo school at the Memphis zoo. Z and Toley took it all 3 years; I just took it for the last year, so I don’t remember much. Toley remembers feeding a ton of cool animals and Z remembers writing reports about manatee’s and other boring stuff (which he reminded us of throughout the trip)

After piling up in our rental car (which Kik loved), we drove about a half ‘n’ hour to the zoo. Daddy rode back to see his old office and work. So mom took us in. We handed over our tickets, looked at the map and decided to go to the Cat…house…place first. The first cat(s) we saw was a black leopard and a spotted leopard sitting on a log together (like the pic). They were so beautiful, and stared straight at us so we got a good picture. Across from them were two gorgeous tigers. The one in the picture we all loved. Then there was a fluffy snow leopard all curled up in a corner, two Ocelots, a lynx, and two cheetahs. There were two lions were laying on a heated rock, and the girls wanted to just cuddle up in their manes. Good thing Daddy wasn’t there!

After that we went to the tropical bird house thingy. The “best animal in the zoo” as Toley calls it, was the pink cockatoo. He (or she) kept ducking its head up and down playing peek-a-boo with us behind a log. So cute! We sat there watching him for a little while.

We saw a lot of different tropical birds with many different colors, including two kookaburras; whose song we sang throughout the day. We went in a couple huge bird rooms and watched them as they flew around us. We walked around and saw some pelicans (who looked absolutely bored out of their minds) and some grumpy looking’ warthogs and a couple little piggy’s!

Next it was to the aquarium. It had...well what normal aquarium’s usually have! Fish. Fish, eels, turtles. One turtle was kind of creeping Toley and I out. It was looking at us and smiling a very…malicious smile! It was so creepy! Then over to the Komodo dragons, those things are so cool! But creepy. Kik didn’t really get why they weren’t moving, Toley thanked the big one for “posing” so well, and Z just said “cool! We should get one!”

After that we headed over the reptile area. There was a croc and an Alligator that tried to be still as it could and look like a log, Kik got a kick out of that! There was also a humongous snapping turtle, a bunch of snakes and lizard’s one of the snakes was eating a mouse which Kik loved and sat watching it the whole time.

At last we headed over to the picnic area and had lunch, which consisted of power bars, drinks, apples, carrots and Ritz crackers. Z-man's lunch consisted of Ritz and his precious root beer.

Next it was to the primate section. Which had a grand total of 1 monkey in the whole entire area, and he just sat staring at us the whole time. The weather was not nice and a bit chilly, so we didn't expect much, but one?! Oh and also NO: Hippos, Rhinos, Pandas or Giraffes! Actually we saw just the heads (on the body’s of course) peeking out in their cage thingy. Their whole enclosure was frozen and slippery. Z thought it would’ve been funny to see them out there. BOYS!!

So we walked on to see the Zebra’s and some antelope, an Elephant and a huge cage with two lazy polar bears in it. All they did was lie on the rock, we went over to wear they were closest and they walked away, so we followed them but then they turned around and went the other way! UH! Ha-ha. But whenever they tried to get up they would slump back down. It was very entertaining!

Across from them was a huge glass tank with a bunch of sea lions in it. They were swimming around gracefully with their eyes closed like nothing mattered. So cute, mommy and I agreed that we could stay there all day! Then we saw two bald eagles sitting on a tree in their cage. Along with a raven...yes a raven. Ooo lets go see a raven! Ha-ha, poor Mr. Raven. We did glance at him though. But the eagles are always so majestic it’s hard to take your eyes of them!

On the way to the Teton Trek,a new exhibit at the zoo, mommy said that one of us would have to work at a zoo so she could sit there all day for free. Z said “well, you can count me out!”

The Teton trek had two very comical grizzlies and several white wolves running around. It also had a fire place outside which was, I think, Mommy’s favorite part!

The wolves looked at us for a while, then all trotted off somewhere else. It was probably lunch time or something. So we went over to see the grizzlies, they were just lumbering around. One of them was banging on the door, probably looking for food, the other just walked around lazily and clumsily. He had something in his mouth at one point but then dropped it in the little stream running through their enclosure. He tried to get it back by sticking out one paw and trying to reach it, but failed. It was a very good show though!

All in all I thought it was a really good day! Although I always think zoos are good. On the way out, mommy saw a gift shop. Uh-oh. We didn’t stay there for too long though. She actually didn’t buy anything! Just the kids, Kik got a little leopard he named Millie (for Millington), I got a long blue fuzzy snake I named Montgomery (Monte python for short) and Toley got a really big, cute, fuzzy, plush giraffe she named him: Simon James Alexander Ragsdale III. Don’t ask.

-Pooh