March 21 ZOO OPENING!!!

Friday:  My dear Cal -- who, by the way, now wants to be called "Gregory" (it is his first name noted on his birth certificate: Gregory Callaghan!). Hmm. It's going to be a difficult transition for this old grandma to switch from CAL to GREGORY ... but I'll give it my best shot.

Anyway, this dear little one has requested that we go to the zoo for months--and I could thankfully tell him that it was NOT open during the cold winter months because the little animals were not all acclimated to cold temperatures. That satisfied him, at least until it started warming up a few weeks ago. THEN his requests to go to the zoo were quite persistent!

Thankfully, the official zoo opening was TODAY. Yes! Cal and I stood in line to get my membership purchased (which went up $40! if I wanted a "family" membership--duh--of course I do!). Once our membership was purchased, we walked over to the FUNICULAR (the zoo's version of a train--which I always felt was a bit pathetic because it doesn't look a bit like a train, other than the tracks it is on! PLUS! you have to pay to go up to the top of the zoo and then pay again if you want to ride it down!) but it was closed down (temporarily).

We turned around and headed for the hippo exhibit: This is Jahari! He is ten years old! There is a low tunnel you can stoop down to get inside (Cal did NOT have to stoop down) and then you can get super close to the window to see him. We stayed there quite a long time, me and Cal, watching Jahari swim. Now and then he would come really close to the window and show us his huge teeth--but naturally, all the pictures I shot of that phenomenon were blurred beyond use--I was too excited to hold the camera still!

Right next to the hippo exhibit we found some beautiful WHITE STORKS (according to the zoo site). Aren't they beautiful?

THEN, we walked over to the bald eagle place. We measured calls "wing" span but he is still so young, he only came close to a span close to a hawk. Cal informed me that bald eagles are his favorite birds. As we looked into the habitat that houses an actual bald eagle, he/she was not to be found. Thankfully, later on in our wanderings, we ended up at the top of where we could look down into the habitat and Cal spotted the eagle resting (kind of behind its nest). He was very pleased to see it.

We went into the reptile house where it was toasty warm (outside it was 41 and very windy--and I was freezing). We saw a lot of different snakes, lizards and geckos there, but I didn't photograph very many of them because it was too crowded with people blocking a good shot. I can't remember what this lizard is who is pictured below.

We finally walked a wind-y boardwalk all the way to the top where the tigers live; but the only tiger who was out and about was not interested whatsoever in actually being in a good place to SEE him. So Cal played in this little play area for awhile.

He was yelling out orders to me as he ran: "You go this way, grandma; and I will go THAT way and then we'll meet!" Okay. Good plan. That's exactly what we did.

I love this hilarious picture of Cal (below), hatching out of an egg (I forget what exact bird egg this is). Anyway, Cal really got into hatching mode here!

We walked over to visit the Red Panda exhibit and found that WYATT was out and about! What a beautiful little creature Red Pandas are! Wasaki was inside their little house keeping warm.

Afterwards, Cal requested that we go and see the farm animals ...

We saw GOATS ...

... and some SHEEP too!

Cal was so super pleased to be at the zoo today. He is a delightful little person to be with. He is interested in almost EVERYTHING and has a great retention of information.

And he is a GOOF too! I asked him what on earth hanging out his tongue was supposed to do to my picture?!?! He just laughed and gave me no answer.

We had been at the zoo for about 90 minutes now and Cal was getting hungry. Thankfully, I packed a granola bar for him and some water; so that helped us for about 60 seconds! Cal asked when we were going to my house and I told him we could leave whenever he was ready to leave. I told him we would have a nice lunch at my house. That was all it took -- and we headed for the zoo exit.

Thankfully, on our way out we had to pass by the HOWLING monkey area. Oh.my.word. When we were quite a ways off, I heard a sound that I thought was recorded on a loud speaker ... but what was the sound? It was a low growling ... and VERY LOUD. I was so shocked to find that it was these monkeys! The darker colored monkey is the male and the lighter ones are female. They were howling up a storm! I'm not sure Cal quite liked this ... 

In order to leave the zoo from the pathway we had taken, we had to go through the Wallaby and Kangaroo area. We measured Cal and he turned out to be as big as a Wallaby Joey! We did see (in a distant corner) two Wallaby's huddled up trying to keep warm. I didn't take a picture of them.

We drove home to my house (Cal fell asleep on the drive there) ... and ate lunch and played for about an hour back in the toy room. Cal is very into LEGOs presently, especially space LEGOs. Although his only goal is for us each to build a spaceship, have a WAR (oh my) and DEFEAT ME! So ... we did that for quite awhile. I had to be sure that it was MY spaceship that got all blown apart and not Cal's.

Mr. Gregory Callaghan! You are such a JOY.

We did go back to Cal's house in time for Brendan to come home from school and then the little kids about an hour later. I took zero pictures over at their house today. I meant to, but didn't do it!