Denver Zoo

Today was a free day at the Denver Zoo. I've been wanting to take the kids, so I decided to take them today. The zoo opened at 10:00 and we got there about 10:15. It was already very crowded. I only took Erik and Lily since Drew wouldn't really care yet. That, and Drew had his 6 month check-up today. I gave Daniel the choice of what he wanted to do: take the kids to the zoo or take Drew to his appointment. He chose to take Drew....wimp! Just kidding. Anyway, the weather today was fabulous: clear, blue skies with a high of about 65. That meant the weather this morning was perfect....not too cold but not too warm yet. By the time we left about 1:00, it was getting pretty warm and most of the animals were just sitting around. For the first two hours we were there, many of the animals were active. Erik had a fun time, but Lily was tired and grouchy after about an hour. Everytime Erik said he wanted to go see an animal, Lily's reply was "I don't wanna see that!" When she cried because we couldn't go on the train or the carousel, and yelled that there were too many people who wouldn't get out of her way I knew it was time to go home. We stayed about 3 hours. Even though there were tons of people there, it wasn't too bad. This zoo is so big that not one exhibit was too crowded. I'm glad we went, and I'm even happier that I didn't have to pay. Next time we go we're going to have to ride the train and the carousel. I don't know if I'll take Lily again....at least not when she is so tired.

Here are a few pictures of our adventure:

Looking at the rhino. It was so bright that Erik wore my sunglasses. I didn't think about bringing hats or sunglasses. Next time those will be must haves.

Lily looking at the huge hippo. Both of the hippos were bigger than any I've ever seen before!

The leopard climbing in his tree.

The polar bears were a favorite of both Erik and Lily.

Lily was excited about the giraffes. This is the zoo's newest giraffe. It's 6 months old...same as Drew! :)

There was another tiger, in a different cage, that was massive! He was sleeping, and the window of his exhibit was slobbered, so I didn't get a picture.

You can see the zebras between Erik and Lily. They were all clustered around their food/water.

One of the two Lion Kings, as Erik called them.

Erik liked this because it is the same as the lemur king in Madagascar. The monkeys were my favorite. There were some really cute ones in the primate house....they were no bigger than Erik's forearm.

Next time I think I'll take my double stroller so that both kids can ride when they get tired. Lily would have had more fun if we could have taken our time looking at the animals, and resting more often. She wanted to play in some of the grassy areas like the other kids. This had to be a quick visit since Daniel had to go to work at 2:00. In order to see all the animals we had to hurry from exhibit to exhibit. Even I was tired by the end, but we did have fun.