Plano, Texas (Day 4)

On Monday (Yes, I know, I'm a little mixed upon days.) we went to the Dallas Zoo. We made a bunch of sandwiches, threw them into the little cooler, and headed out. Unfortunately, Jack (13) wasn't able to go with us. He left earlier that morning for a huge scout outing.

The entrance to the zoo was painted lots of fun bright colors. (Sorry no picture.) This was their way of camouflaging the fact that the the shaded cover over-head was really an over-pass for one of Dallas' MANY freeways. What a great use of space!

We saw many animals, of course. The gorilla habitat was particularly large.

Here's Daniel with Bart, Dawn, Madeline and Wyatt as they search for gorillas.
The kids stopped to pet an alligator between gorilla sightings.

My favorite, as most of you may guess, was the African Black-footed Penguins.

Probably the most fun thing at the zoo was the children's section. It incorporated lost of different buildings and sights into one compact, kid-friendly space. In the center of it all there was a cool little river for the kids to wade and play in.

Madeline and Savannah had a great time with the water fountain at the opposite side or the river.

Daniel wasted no time testing it out himself.

On the far right of the circle was "Travis and Zach's Bird Landing" It's an aviary where several kinds of birds fly around. If you're lucky and calm they'll even land and perch on you hand or on your shoulder. We took some cute pictures of Heidi while we waited to get in. And here are some of Madeline... and her friends.

Madeline made lots of bird friends.

Here she is introducing one of them to Daniel.

After the aviary, we went to "The Underground" where we (ok they) crawled through a tunnel to watch some baby groundhogs in their burrow. Wyatt held Daniel up in one of the viewing domes so I could get a picture of them. (He was a little too helpful and bumped his head on the top of it.) Sorry bud.

On our way out we stopped to check out the"Nature Exchange". This is where kids go and bring any type of fossil or geological item them have discovered. If the workers find it interesting they will "buy" it from them for points. Then, after collecting lots of points, the kids are able to "buy" something cool on display in the store. They also have a small bin of shells and little rocks so each kid can choose one to take for free. (I just wish I'd taken pictures of this part.) We had a great time at the zoo. What a fun place to be with family!