A TRIP TO THE HOGLE ZOO!

I went to the Hogle Zoo for the first time Sunday morning! I had been there once before for the Zoo Lights but you can't actually see any of the animals during that; I'm not even sure if the animals are there in the Winter actually. So this was the first time actually seeing the zoo and it was so fun!

For being a relatively smaller zoo, it's still super fun, and it's laid out nice so it feels bigger than it really is! About 10:00a.m. it started to pour so we hid out under the awnings next to the elephants who were also hiding out from the rain. It was fun to just sit for 15 minutes or so and watch the rain, but especially watch the elephants play with each other and hide from the rain too. 

We went to the bird show at 11:00a.m. and I'm so amazed you can train birds to participate like they did! They fly in from all over and have their little markers they know to go to for their treat. I especially love all the beautiful tropical, colorful ones; they're just so pretty to watch!

After the bird show, we had lunch at the Beastro. Clever name huh? We got pepperoni pizza slices and some macaroni and cheese to share. After lunch there was a little ice cream stand outside the Beastro that serves Dole Whip so of course I got that! I've been on such a pineapple kick lately so my little heart flutters when I see pineapple treats. :)

Okay, gorilla hands are so fascinating to me! This cute gorilla was laying on her back in the straw, staring up at the ceiling, picking at this log next to her and I couldn't help but just admire how human-like her little hand was! It really just looked like my hand in a gorilla costume glove moving about. It was fun to watch her be bored lying on her back just picking away pointlessly at this log.

This is the closest I'll ever be to a polar bear and it was so cool to watch him play in the water just a foot away from my face! He had a red little plastic pool that he kept trying to climb up on but it kept flipping over each time he would try. It's just nice to watch animals so closely while still feeling semi-protected. I probably shouldn't feel too safe though because I'm 92% sure a tiger got out at that zoo like a year ago! 
Okay, I just looked it up, a leopard totally got out of it's habitat last year when a guest found it sleeping!

We ended our zoo day with a ride on the carousel of course!
Go to the zoo, you guys, it's so fun! Unless you're against zoos, then just know in your heart that they looked happy. ;)