We went to the zoo!

Over the last couple of weeks the weather around here has been miserable...warm, muggy, humid, thunderstorms in the afternoon. You would think we lived in the tropical rain forests, and not in Central Ohio. Well Thursday the weather was much less humid, no rain in the forecast and it was only supposed to be about 80 degrees and sunny. We decided to take advantage of the weather and head to the zoo!

Columbus has a wonderful zoo and aquarium, that we try to visit at least once a year. It is a little pricey with admission (which for our family was $50, Ben was free) and gasoline (it is about 1 hour 10 minutes away), but it is well worth it. The last time we were there, Benjamin was only a couple of months old, so it was time to make another trip.

I am so glad we did. We had a great day!

This was a HUGE brown bear. Right before this he was walking by the glass and he was HUGE!

We saw lots and lots of animals!

Artic foxes

We rode the train ride.

The boys LOVED the aquarium. Rebecca liked seeing the hammerhead sharks that they had, even when two of them swam right towards where she was standing! Benjamin was enamored with all the fish!

Saltwater corral aquarium with small hammerhead

Jacob loved the stingray that was feeding very close to where we were standing to look at the manatee exhibit. It suddenly stopped feeding, and swam up really fast and Jacob screamed loudly as it scared him! (He quickly recovered! lol)

Ray that was feeding right before it scared Jacob

When we were looking at the otters, one of them looked up and started making noise and yelling. I didn't realize that otters were that loud. I am just hoping it wasn't cussing us out!

The otter looking up is the one that was squeaking and carrying on while watching us.

We saw the huge male gorilla stiffen up and follow 2 people that had service dogs walking around the zoo. That gorilla did NOT like the service dogs at all. The woman told me that the dogs were in training and that 2 weeks ago they were there and the gorilla paid them no attention at all, but since the baby gorilla was born, she wondered if the male was being protective dad.

Male silverback gorilla

Speaking of the baby gorilla, it was so cute! Rebecca said it was her favorite. The baby was being held and fed by a human caregiver in a setting right next to it's grandmother gorilla. The zookeeper said that it's mother had rejected it at birth and that the grandma gorilla was taking over caring for it. She said this had happened with the young baby's mom as well (she was rejected by her mom, but raised by her grandmother gorilla). I thought that was quite interesting.

baby gorilla-- being cared for by his human caregiver for now.

Another really interesting thing that we saw was in the kangaroo walkabout, which is an area that in enclosed, but where you walk along a path among the kangaroos. Well one of the kangaroo, did NOT want anyone to walk on the path, so she stood there and blocked the way. Then she decided to lay on the path. The zoo keeper said that it was because she had been hand-raised and thought that the humans were her family.

kangaroo blocking the path

Every time we go, Bill loves seeing the "flying foxes." They are bat like animals that are huge and they are scary looking to me, but Bill loves seeing them.

Scary flying foxes

Personally, my favorite was seeing the polar bears! I think they are magnificent creatures and although they were just laying around they were still beautiful!

Polar bear---beautiful creatures in my opinion.

Overall it was a great day, full of fun memories for each family member to keep with us until the next time we visit!

Do you go to the zoo? What is your favorite animal to see at the zoo?