Father's Day: Part 2

As our Father's day bonanza weekend continued, we decided to head up to the zoo.  We had considered a half dozen options for a Sunday morning, but landed on the zoo, largely because SO MANY things didn't open until 11 or later!

Since we'd never been to that area of the zoo, we decided to hit Jungle Jack's landing.  We really didn't know what to expect, but when we got there, it was COMPLETELY empty!  We made our way over past the owls, to an area where kids could get up close and personal with some smaller animals.  Not afraid of much, Amara pet an iguana, a black rat snake, Myrtle the turtle, and a polecat (a tiny rodent like member of the weasel family, who was SO cute).

After our animal encounters, we went to check out the rides.  Surprisingly, she was tall enough (a benefit of her height) for several rides--though, she was the only one on them :(  She rode the elephants--akin to the Dumbo ride at Disney, a small train ride, and the tea cups too.  After the riding, she was still insisting on seeing the Polar Bears, so we headed off.  I have to say--we've seen them twice now, and we love them, so I'm sure we'll continue, but it is a HIKE to get to the Polar Bears--ESPECIALLY when that's all "someone" is interested in seeing...:)

We made it over there just in time for feeding, where we get to seem them really show off and play, belly-flopping and jumping around in the water for their lunch.  What an amazing animal and treat to get to watch them.

Hot and sweaty (though, partially quenched by lemonade) we headed back to the gate--JUST as I thought we'd made it out, Eric says "you want to see if they have a polecat?"

We walked in the kids' marketplace store and I asked the cashier and she literally said "A what?"  Perfect.  After hunting around, Eric found a smallish red panda, that at the very least, was close in size to the polecat, and had similar markings.  We decided we'd found the polecat and went off to pay.

Eric and Amara and polecat watched Mickey Mouse in the backseat all the way home.  I think that was a pretty fun "official" Father's Day morning for all of us.