Monkeying Around at the Dallas Zoo

It's early November and the temps are still in the 80s most days.  Imagine our delight when we awoke to a cloudy, 74 degree day for the zoo.  It was perfect!  We picked up Nash and his mama and drove past downtown to the Dallas Zoo.

We got to park in the first parking lot, walked right up to buy our tickets and then were greeted by these beautiful birds.

Their colors are simply magnificient.

We said good morning to all the flamingos and then consulted our map to find all of the super cool animals.

Zoo South is where it's at!  The Giants of the Savanna are our favorites.

Before we got to all of the big animals, though, we made a pit stop to see the penguins.  So cute!

Then the real fun began. Get this--we found Rafiki!!!

She kept saying, "We have to tell Madison that we found Rafiki."

Next up--some of my faves, the elephants.  As a bonus we got to see this brand new baby, too.

Then we were on to the giraffes, ostriches and antelopes.

Our main goal was to feed the giraffes.  Just look at this majestic creature!

We bought some lettuce and Cami walked right up to the giraffe.  She may have been terrified to say, "Trick or Treat" to strangers, but this girl had no fear of feeding a gigantic animal.

At first, I held her as she fed him...

but then she did it all on her own.  She told us later, "I was so brave!  I fed him all by myself!"
Yes, you sure sure did.  I was impressed.

Sweet friends.  She has stopped calling him Baby Nash, since he turned two a few months ago.  She still treats him like a little brother, though.  So cute.

We said hello to the cheetahs...

and then let the kids take a ride on the small elephant...

and big one, too.  Look at me, mom!

After that, it was time to go check out the gorillas.  There were three big ones, all doing different things.  This big guy was having a healthy snack and watching us very closely.

He was such a beast!

He moved over to the glass area when we walked around there, but kept his back to us.

Another one did not shun us, though.  In fact, right after I snapped this picture, the gorilla in the background charged at us!  He ran up and hit the glass.  Hard!  Tara was so startled that she scooped up Nash and jumped back five feet!  Cami and I just watched in amazement.

Then he sat down very calmly and began munching on some lettuce, while keeping an eye on us.  Easy big guy!

After lunch, we decided to tour some other parts of the zoo via train.  It was so neat!  

It took us over many different enclosures and gave us a birds eye view of anything from crocodiles to chimps.  We even caught a glimpse of the Dallas skyline.

I gotta say, the Dallas Zoo is impressing me every time we go back.  

We ended our afternoon by spending time in the Children's Area.  This girl thought getting inside an enormous nest was pretty funny.

She ran around and checked out the gigantic spider web...

and finally joined Nash in the water.  

By the time these two were done, they were soaking wet.
Thank goodness we had brought a change of clothes!

One of my goals this month is to spend more time outdoors.  Zoo on Wednesday and bike rides last night.  So far, so good.