our favorite spot

Diego and I hit the local zoo one more time last week.  Can you tell he likes it?

We may even go again this week before the kids get out of school.  The zoo is right next to the school....you can even hear the lions roaring on the playground...if it's quiet, ha!



The flamingos are one of the first animals to greet you at the zoo.

The word flamingo reminds me of the Spanish dance flamenco, although I don't think they are related in any way.  At Isabela's old latin dance school, I used to hear people call the dance flamingo, as in, "Go in to your flamingo class."  It used to bother me so much, but actually flamingo in spanish IS flamenco, so I guess those people weren't that far off.



This parrot said, "Helro!" to us with a similar scooby-doo accent.  And another one nearby whistled 'Whu-woo!', the 'you're so pretty' whistle.  I was happy.



My favorite bird of all time...the toucan.



This zoo is full of beautiful birds.  This peacock came to check us out while we ate our sno-cones.



And this one was proudly strutting around with a rock in his beak that he had found.



The monkeys are the second best thing at this zoo.  Most people probably go for the white tigers and to feed the giraffes, but in my old age, I prefer the amazing colors of the birds, and the huge variety of monkeys that they have.

Just look at the piercing stare of this lemur.



And the grandfatherly wisdom of this bearded monkey.



And the cleverness of this hungry monkey looking for a little change in diet.



We grabbed our usual sno-cones and decided to take the train this time.  This zoo has a train ride that takes you to a 'secret' part of the zoo.  We had always wondered what was back there....



....it turns out it's a free-range African savannah.  The animals are free to walk right up to the train!

This ostrich was busy drinking water from that tube in the ground.



There were many types of herd animals back there, mostly gazelles and goat like animals.  Nothing dangerous, I imagine.



These were the only ones curious enough to come right up to the train.



The guide pointed out these ostrich eggs sitting right on the middle of the ground.  Did you know the male ostrich is black because he sits on the eggs at night and the female ostrich is gray because she sits on the eggs during the day?  The tour guide told us all kinds of neat facts like that.



Diego and I hope to get a lot more use out of our zoo pass this year.  Maybe we'll be brave and try the sky ride next time!