Giving Abbie a Traditional Zooish Upbringing

We arrived at the zoo shortly after 1 on Saturday. We probably should have arrived much earlier since I would estimate the crowd visiting the zoo that day to be approximately 5% of the total population of the Omaha metro area, assuming that the metropolitan area includes cities like Council Bluffs, Lincoln, Des Moines, Denver, and maybe some of the western suburbs of Chicago. The zoo boasts an annual attendance in the millions, and I assume that all but maybe 100,000 of those visitors chose Saturday as the day to visit, and most of those people tried to enter at they same gate we tried to enter.

It took about 20 minutes to work our way through into the zoo, partially thanks to an agonizingly slow credit card machine*. We decided to make our first stop a lunch stop. I hoped that we would be in off-peak concession hours, but it turns out that peak concession hours basically coincide with the zoo’s hours of operations. We went to the main café first, looked at the line, and, after ensuring that we hadn’t laughed hard enough to wet ourselves, decided to try a small food stand. We found a suitable stand, but after waiting for literally 20 minutes without moving, realized that, gosh, we’re not really that hungry after all, and left to wait in line for an actual attraction. An hour after driving into the zoo’s parking lot, we finally saw our first live non-Midwestern animals in the rainforest exhibit.



Here you see Abbie and Ellie looking at a waterfall. Something about these waterfalls frightened Abbie, and I think it was the “fall” part. Hearing the loud noise and seeing that we’re about 30 feet above the jungle floor sent her crying I believe.



Here are the giraffes that the zoo used to successfully scam several families. A sign next to the cage said, “help us train our giraffes.” For only $1, you could buy a short branch with about half-a-dozen leaves. I guess the idea was to help the zoo train the giraffes to eat from human hands. As you can see from the picture, the giraffes were not sufficiently motivated to move near enough to eat from our hands in spite of the several nearby children jumping up and down and screaming wildly in an attempt to draw the giraffes’ attention. Just outside their cage was a gift stand where you could buy all sorts of giraffe paraphernalia as a souvenir, as if a dead branch wouldn’t always remind you of the time an entire giraffe herd ignored you.



Here is Abbie and Ellie looking at the penguins. The penguin tank is mommy’s favorite exhibit, and I think Abbie liked it too.



Here is Abbie and Ellie looking at the spot where the garden eels used to be. The garden eels used to be daddy’s favorite aquatic life, but I guess daddy needs a new favorite.



Here’s the shark tunnel. Abbie enjoyed this, especially the part where she could bang on the glass and taunt the sharks. There seemed to be more sharks than I remember. Maybe they got into the garden eels exhibit.



Here’s the jellyfish tube. Abbie liked the cool lighting and the fact that they’re more active than the big cats.



Here’s Abbie levitating above the new gorilla valley. Actually she’s standing in a bubble window overlooking the valley. The new valley was very impressive. The Omaha zoo put a lot of effort into expanding their primate exhibit, possibly spurred on by Des Moines’s new primate center, where their apes have jammed with Peter Gabriel.



I’m pretty sure this picture will turn up again at some potentially embarrassing point in Abbie’s life.



Here’s Abbie watching the mongooses**. They were very active, and Abbie loved watching them frolic in potential snake training for snake assassination.



The petting zoo was Abbie’s favorite exhibit. This makes sense considering Abbie loves petting our animals, plus the zoo’s animals didn’t run away in terror. Ellie loved taking Abbie around to all the animals. I loved watching her (Abbie) pet the goats, until one of the goats darn near stole our precious Tasteeos. Lousy goats. Bonus observation: A sign near the entrance said, “Do not pick up the baby goats.” Presumably the adult goats, like the one who tried to filch our Tasteeos, were fair game.

After the petting zoo, we took our very sleepy baby and went home, ending our zoo excursion. Tomorrow, I’ll give a similar treatment for Abbie’s first birthday today.

* Regarding the problem, I’m sure someone in zoo management said, “What are they going to do about it? Not go to the zoo?”

** Other potential plural forms of “mongoose” include “mongeese,” “mongoose,” and “mongi.”