A Day at the Zoo

Ginny, Grace (she's in the carrier), and I at the zoo!

I love going to the zoo! As I mentioned once before, I especially love the St. Louis Zoo! It is a great zoo, that is constantly evolving, and it is free. What makes the zoo even better is the fact that I live within 2 hours of the zoo now. For a Midwesterner, driving 2 hours to do something for a day is nothing. We go on those types of road trips in a heartbeat.

Recently, I found myself craving the zoo. Yes, craving. Constant thoughts of the zoo kept flitting through my mind. I had a hard time letting the thought go. Of course, the thoughts started at the end of February. It was a bit cold to justify a visit. Then, we had a snow storm at the end of March, further pushing off my desired trip down to St. Louis. Finally, the weather seemed to ease into spring temperatures. May was a busy month, with activities like our vacation, my first 5K of the season, and going into St. Louis for a baseball game on Mother's Day. I kept hoping for the perfect opportunity to take the trip down, but then the storms came in, preventing my attempts to go to the zoo.

Last week I made the decision that I was going to go and not allow the weather to put us off in planning to go.  I put my plans into action by posting on FB that I was coming down and would love to meet with any friends (I went to high school in the St. Louis area) or family (most of my cousins and aunts/uncles all live there). Naturally, I pretty much heard crickets from all the people I know down there. I expected that. No biggie. I was going whether anyone was wanting to join my girls and me or not.*

I did get a quick response from one high school friend, Gwen, who let me know that she and her kids would love to join me. She wanted to know when I planned to come down and then let me know her availability. We set up our zoo "date" for today. Again, I tried to get others to join us, but I had no luck, although one person did say she was interested if not for the fact that she would be out of town.

We were supposed to meet at 9:30 this morning at the south entrance. Normally, I'm quite punctual. In fact, I'm usually 10-15 minutes early to everything. Today, I was 30 minutes late. Being late crushes my soul. It is an awful feeling. I made a couple of mistakes which prevented me from being on time. I forgot to factor in the time to stop and nurse my baby, Grace. I should have considered that, but I figured she would make it the whole way down and I could nurse her after we arrived. Grace let me know that she was hungry before we got there. Also, I did not think that Ginny, my toddler, would have a meltdown when I stopped to feed Grace. And, my last mistake was the zoo itself. I forgot how insane it can be to get into the zoo. I was thinking that since it was a weekday it would be a non-issue. However, since school is out, a weekday is like a weekend at the zoo until summer comes to an end.

Elephants! (Isn't the baby adorable?)

I was grateful that Gwen didn't kick my butt for being so late. She was very kind and patient in waiting for us. The weather was perfection! It was partly sunny, temps were in the low 70s, and there was a nice breeze. The weather made for a pleasant time walking around the zoo with our kids. Ginny really enjoyed seeing the animals! Of course, many animals hid from us so we couldn't see them. Typical. Ginny did get a thrill when she saw the elephants for the first time. She also seemed to enjoy the apes (which she calls monkeys, but hey, how do you explain the difference to a two-year-old?).

While we were walking around the zoo, Gwen let me borrow a toddler leash backpack thing for Ginny to use so she could get out of her stroller. I will admit to holding a certain bias against leashes for kids. They usually bother me a lot.  Today, though, I discovered the nice thing about them. They are great for crowds! Ginny could be free to walk around and at her own pace, for the most part, while using the leash. Without the leash, she would have needed to stay in the stroller or hold on to it while walking or hold my hand. Now, I'm actually considering getting one for her.

Ginny enjoying her chicken tenders at Applebees!

When it got close to lunch, Gwen and her kids needed to leave for home. Ginny, Grace, and I stayed around a bit longer so we could go to the monkey house and stop at the gift shop. After making a couple of purchases at the gift shop, we headed to the car. I had hoped to get lunch at my favorite pizza place, Imo's, before heading home. The school bus parked in the Imo's parking lot forced me to change my mind. Instead, we stopped at an Applebee's on our way home.

It really was a fabulous day! I look forward to going down for another visit to the zoo. Maybe I should make  going to the zoo a monthly adventure. We shall see!


*I should note right here, for those who are wondering, that my plans did not involve my DH. My husband is not a fan of zoos in general.  (He also has the same aversion to amusement parks, like Disney World.) I don't get it, but I still drag him on occasion.  However, when I decided to make plans, I decided to plan for a day when he would be working and unable to join us. When I mentioned that to him, he seemed thrilled.