The zoo is always a surreal experience, especially with children. Our world is filled with animals that are truly bizarre looking. What is a Taper? Seriously, do you ever see animal specials on TV about the Taper? I think not. As I was trying to explain to Lucy what a Taper is an elderly woman confidently walked up to me and said “actually, it is a member of the horse family.” Really? The horse family? Because it looks like it should be related to a pig. And what about all those random gazelle/antelope animals? There are thousands of variations of a deer with antlers. It’s as if God ran out of ideas for animals and just went with a variation on a theme. A deer with straight antlers, a deer with curly antlers, a deer with big antlers, a deer with striped antlers, a small deer with big antlers, a big deer with small antlers. I don’t know, it doesn’t make sense to me.

The most exciting part of our trip was the pony rides. I honestly didn’t think Max would go for it, but he surprised us all when he strutted up to the attendant, handed him his token and climbed aboard the pony as if he was ready to ride off into the sunset or hold-up a saloon. Lucy was a bit more hesitant, but once aboard she thought it was pretty cool, although not nearly as cool as the fish tank. If I knew what an impact “Finding Nemo” was going to have on her I would have never let her watch it. Lucy is in a constant state of obsession over fish, sharks and anything aquatic. Wow, the power of Disney. We wrapped up the day with a special visit to the stingray tank where Lucy got to actually TOUCH a stingray. After about ten minutes of this though Lucy announced that she was tired and that it was time to go home, and she was right.