Today is America's Independence Day & what better way to celebrate the afternoon than a Military appreciation day at the Zoo!?
So that's what we did. A family day at Utah's Hogle Zoo in Salt Lake. A first for all of us!
We started with a train ride around the "park" :) Bryce LOOOOOOVED it. He asked to go on it numerous times afterwards.
Bryce was savin a seat in front for Grandpa :)
Cute little steam locomotive huh?
There they are ....all my boys-minus my Pey Pey of course :)
Kathleen and I thought this was a funny/cute name for the zoo cafe.
Fitting? We are in the Monkey exhibit!
Grammie got the kids these packs of Goldfish SMORES....the kids LOOOOOOOVE them and fought over them the entire time at the zoo (which was NOT a pleasant experience for the Momma and the Dadda)
A King Vulture. Looked IDENTICAL to the ones in Jungle Book! Bizzare looking creatures.
There were Zoo docents all over the park. This one was at the Elephant exhibit showing the kids a real elephant tooth! They got to touch & explore...it was FANTASTIC!
Bryce walked up to this elephant skull and said "HELLOOOOOO" inside the bone trunk, and it echoed. So funny!
The kids got to dig for dinosaur fossils & were delighted to be able to take their shoes off to get down to the nitty gritty in the sandbox.
When we were in the car traveling to the zoo, we asked the kids what they wanted to see most at the Zoo.
Bryce: I wanna see a TIGER!
EmmaLee: I want to see a BEAR!
Bryce didn't think he was going to get to RIDE a tiger like he did though! lol
We saw massive turtles. They were so weathered looking that my dad thought they were fake! lol
We bumped into another docent on his way to the tigers! He let the kids gently pet a real Tiger pellet. It was pretty amazing!
Inside one area, they had a giant "terrarium" type area, and you felt like you were really walking in the amazon rainforest. It was humid, and there were animals ALL AROUND YOU!
NOT my cup of tea! Check out that sloth! I could have PET the dang thing. Ewwww....then I noticed the birds-I HATE birds, and I got freaked out! As I tried to find my way out without freaking out my small counterparts, I noticed a sign that said "Please do not touch Iguanas"! WHAT THE......I was OUTTA THERE!
This thing was called a Desert Sand Cat. It had such furry paws & walked so lightly on them that it leaves NO PRINTS in the sand! FREAKY!
There were true scale Dinosaurs all over the zoo because of the special ZOO-RASIC exhibit going on. Some of them sprayed passer-byers with "dinosaur poison" as Emma called it! :)
Mike's favorite zoo animal is a snow leopard....but there weren't any. This is as close as we got. A Beautiful animal.
Then all of a sudden, we walk under an overpass and a tiger decides to get up from its corralled area and walk right above us! IT WAS A-M-A-Z-I-N-G! I've never been that close to a tiger in my life! It was ABSOLUTELY the highlight of the trip for me!
What a stunning creature! It was VERY curious as to what the trainers were doing in the kennel next door. It stood on its perch watching them work for quite some time. Thank goodness there was a couple fences between them. It didn't look like a "friendly" kitty by ANY means! It kept rubbing up along the fence-marking it's territory!
My favorite zoo animal was represented! :)
Em was our park guide towards the end of the trip...helping us find the camels & bald eagles....
Turkeys, rabbits & peacocks roam free at the Hogle Zoo. It was kinda cool, but I hate birds so-NOT my favorite thing. :) Bryce would have taken a ride on the peacock if we let him any closer to it though. It was funny to listen to the birds all squak & talk to each other....
look at those colors! Wow....
There they were. The eagles. My Dad's favorite animal. They had hurt wings.
A zookeeper was in their cage cleaning out their pool like "no big deal"-it's not like there are 2 giant birds with massive tallons staring RIGHT AT YOU! Um-no thank you! Those claws were the size of baseballs! But then-this guy pulls out of a gallon sized ziplock-2 white FROZEN rats! Grrrrross! But holy moly-if those birds didn't start telling him to get the hell out of there. They were squakin something fierce. He plopped those rats in various areas of the cage & walked out just as calm as he was when he cleaned their pool! ?????
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