Zoo Day

Katy, Claire, Zac and I took a little trip to the Henry Doorly Zoo here in Omaha today. You'd think, it being mid-May and all, that the weather would be very pleasant.  You would be WRONG.  :)  Temps in Omaha were in the upper 40s to around 50 today, and combined with a nice northwesterly wind...you get the picture.  Or, here's one:

The zoo has a nice little area for the kids to pet animals, and the goats were the most interested in being a part of this process.  The chickens, while wandering about, seemed to have no interest in having children pet them.


There were also rabbits and guinea pigs and a baby goat around, but all behind gates. It might have been fun to see the pot-bellied pigs, too, but they were snoozing while we were there.


The Henry Doorly Zoo is one of the top zoos in the U.S. (look it up!) and it has much to offer. Given the cold temps, we were happy to spend our first 30 minutes or so inside the Lied Jungle, which helped warm us up for the rest of the three hours we were there.  Fortunately, many exhibits offer indoor viewing areas, such as those for the big cats, the gorillas, bears and even giraffes.  Wow those things are tall when you get to be up close to them.

I think the favorite part of the zoo visit for all of us today was a newer exhibit called Lemur Island.  In this short, suspended walk-through area, they have black and white ruffed lemurs, as well as red ones.  They are allowed to roam free, which makes for some interesting interaction, such as the one that considered getting up into Zac's umbrella stroller.  



Then, as we were watching a few of the lemurs playing in a tree, as you see here, something unexpected happened and none of us caught it on camera.  A black and white lemur decided to jump back from the tree to the walkway railing and the jump was right at us!  THAT was exciting!