At the Zoo

We walked over to the zoo today. Me and Becky, our daughter, grandson granddaughter. It was a beautifully sunny and cool summer day and there was a crowd. Everyone needed to have advance tickets arranged and scheduled ahead of time. Nobody was admitted without registering first at least the day before. We got our tickets online the previous day and Katie had the tickets on her phone. They had to verify our identities and check out temperatures before we were allowed to pass through the gates.

We were members of the zoo but our annual memberships had expired in May. However, the zoo had a policy that all memberships would be extended by the amount of time the zoo had been closed during the pandemic which was about three months so the visit was still covered by the last year’s annual membership. We all wore masks except for Clara. Even recently turned four-year-old Henry wore his mask. All the zoo visitors were required to wear masks and it looked like everyone we saw there was in compliance. There were one way signs throughout the zoo and the places where people would gather to see the animals had six foot markers to indicate where people would stand. For the most part people were courteous and respectful toward each other and kept adequate social distancing but as always there were a few zombies that ignored other folks personal space and pandemic etiquette. They were aggravating.

The staff was very attentive about wiping down everything with disinfectant such as the merry-go-round and train ride. Several indoor exhibit buildings were open although we did not venture into any of them.

Overall we had a wonderful time with a couple of memorable moments. The first was in the farm area when a cow let out a series of very loud bellowing moos over a short period of time while we were nearby. They were awesomely loud and really nothing like I’ve heard before. It impressed the kids too. Afterwards Clara was saying over an over… “cow go moo”.

The other standout moment was a polar bear that approached the edge of the glass enclosure to within a foot of the kids. This happened several times as he paced back and forth between the water and the glass partition. That bear was huge and none of us had ever experiences being that close to a polar bear before. Usually they were always for across the enclosure with a moat between them and the zoo visitors. Very impressive. We watched for a few minutres before moving on to let another family enjoy that unique experience.

One other impressive sight occurred as we watched a large nearby rhino eating grass he suddenly let out a fire hose like stream of pee that shot out of the rear end about six feet. Not sure the kids knew what they were seeing and we did elaborate.

A little while later we headed out the gate and walked the three blocks to home.