Thursday, July 15, 2010

lions and tigers and bears

We're going to the zoo zoo zoo...

I love the zoo. It's like visiting a jail where the prisoners aren't (hmm, I was going to say scary, but some of those animals ARE; I was going to say foul, but the the stench, at times, IS; I was going to say sad, but I don't recall seeing any SMILES by the creatures behind bars/glass/ravines)... well never mind. I just like going to the zoo. There.

While Laura was here, we decided to visit the OTHER zoo (the Denver Zoo being the first zoo, but not necessarily superior). The Cheyenne Mountain Zoo is on a hillside. And when I say hillside, I don't mean it backs up TO a hill, I mean it is ON a hill. Like some rich guy had a bunch of acres of unusable land and he went out with some pals and got totally wasted and in their inebriated state, started daring each other to do increasingly crazy things until someone said to the rich guy, "You know what you should do?! You should build a ZOO. And there should be...giraffes! And monkeys! And a PYTHON! And they should all live there and people would come and PAY to see it and that would be so awessszzzzz..." And then the guy totally did.

Python! Gemma wanted to touch it. I am a little embarrassed
to admit that when I saw this snake I thought of Britney Spears. *sigh*



Because only at the lackadaisical zoo-exhibit-viewing-pace could you really ascend/descend such a place. It's gorgeous, though. You have to drive up past the Broadmoor Hotel to get there. And then, from just about everywhere you have an incredible view of Colorado Springs out to Kansas. And then there are the animals. Giraffes are one of my most favorite of all animals (besides the hippo - more on that later) and this zoo has more than I've ever seen before. Yay!

The kids each fed the giraffes a cracker (though Gemma tried to sample hers before passing it on) because I decided long ago that whenever we could (legally) feed animals, we would. And giraffe tongues are crazy long, so that's always fun.

We meandered through the zoo, enjoying a wide variety of monkeys, especially the Gibbons who were howling up storm. Now when it's meal time and the kids don't respond right away, I start my best gibbon impersonation (which, I must say, is uncanny) and soon my little monkeys come galloping in. I think it really classes up the place.

Donovan would like to visit this guy's stylist.

And then the hippos! They're like bloated pigs, but prettier (though perhaps not as tasty? I haven't nor, given the chance, will I try hippo bacon). One even got out of the pool and ambled around, before plodding (how many words can I think of that means "walk really really slowly"?) back to the pool and, I kid you not, flopped in, splashing some of the people (though I suppose the hippo can ONLY flop) and then...LAUGHED. No seriously, Donovan said, "It sounds like he's laughing?" If he wasn't laughing, I don't know what it was, but it sounded like...well it sounded like a hippo laughing. How would YOU make a hippo laughing sound? Yep - that's it.

Hey Donovan - don't make that face any more. xoxo,mom

We saw a baby albino wallaby and got to pet it. The zoo volunteer told us that he didn't have any pigment in his skin, and that was why he was all white. "Just like us!" I told the kids. Except I may have said that louder than I meant (as is often the case), because there was a murmur of laughter through a now-gathered mini-crowd. We beat a hasty retreat (to more shade, of course).

A little thank you out to the man who was there with his wife and toddler and baby, sporting a shirt with a wiener dog on it and the saying, "What my wiener wants, my wiener gets," further proving my theory that shirts with sayings should be banned. You can wear those shirts when you mow your lawn, but they have no place in society.

We came around a corner and there was this moose, standing proud as you please at the water's edge. Just standing. Looking around. He's a people pleaser, I can tell. Some animals were hiding ("It says there's a tiger in here - do you see a tiger?") and some were sitting just barely visible. But not the moose! In the heat of the day he greeted his public. Thank you, Mr. Moose.

Frogs!

Honorable mention goes to the snow leopard that rose from his shady resting place to run down right by the glass where Donovan was standing, paced back and forth, looked right at Dono, and then returned up the hill to his shady resting place. And since all animals/places are relative to Disney/Pixar/whatever movies, we all noted that yes, he did look like the bad guy in Kung Fu Panda.

There she is, the Komodo Dragon! (name that movie)

It was a great day, made even better by slurpees on the way home. And then made less great by the massive car accident on the freeway that made it so we spent an hour going 5 miles. But made great again when we listened to Gemma list all the animals she saw, "Seh behs! Seh...why-nins! Seh...MONKEYS! Seh...eh-fen! Eh-fen in baff! So funny!" (I think the "seh" is the article? the translation: "The bears! The lions! The...MONKEYS! The elephants! The elephants were taking a bath! So funny!" And it was - we saw the elephants being power-washed. No, really. With a hose and then a squeegee something. They seemed to be enjoying it, raising/lowering the ears/legs as necessary)

I love the zoo. If I had a bunch of money and some crazy steep land, I'd build one too.

3 comments:

Alex McMurray said...

Loved the reference to Britney Spears. I actually laughed out loud. Looks like you guys had a fun time. Cute, blue shirt, btw!

Alice said...

Aren't wallaby's so soft. I pet one in Australia once. Um I was totally cracking up a the pigment part.

TheKunks said...

Looks like fun! I love the huge giraffe statues!