31 Days in the Moment: At the Zoo!

5 October 2014

Today we had an adventure. We went to the Houston Zoo. It was the first time for Mags, David, Jr., and myself. David, Sr. went when he was a little boy. Laynie gets to go on a regular basis because her school's mascot is housed there.

David, Sr., can't walk for now, so Davey rented a motorized chair for him to ride in. It had a canopy, so he was a little more comfortable than he would have been in a regular, uncovered wheelchair. By the time we were done, I felt like I'd walked a hundred miles! Davey would have gotten me a chair, too, but I'm just not comfortable riding them. I feel like everybody is staring at me. I would rather be invisible.

Invisible isn't so easy, though, when you are not exactly a small person and you have a camera sticking out of your face.

There had to be a zillion people there, because there were only two free parking spaces total in all of the parking lots that we rode through trying to find a space. The line was pretty long and slow at first, but as we got closer to the ticket window, it went much faster. There were only four ticket windows opened to start with. Finally, they opened a third window on the side we were on (I don't know if they opened up more at the other side or not). We were the first ones called to the newly opened window, Ticket Window #3.

We got inside, rented the cart, stopped by the "facilities", and then commenced gawking at animals and people. Watching the little people enjoy the zoo is probably the best part of the whole zoo experience. Of course, the best part today was the fact that we were there with our new Marine and our daughters!

I spent the day trying to master the art of "make the fence disappear" so that I wouldn't have a camera full of chain link fence pictures. Sometimes it worked; other times, not so much. In some of the photos, the fence made a really cool abstract design.

These are two of my favorite abstract-ish images:

  

There were several baby animals at the zoo. I don't remember what this animal is called, but we got a shot of one of the babies nursing. That always makes such a sweet scene, I think.

This is baby Ruby:

The zebra loves little Ruby:

Overall, it was a very good day!