July 10, 2012
No running today. Instead I took my youngest daughter to the zoo. :-) We LOVE the zoo. Our intention today was to see every single attraction that the zoo has to offer. Unfortunately, we did not obtain our goal. Our day started out with an appointment at the St. Louis Children's Hospital. In April my daughter was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes when she was hospitalized for Diabetic Ketoacidosis. While she was in the hospital we enrolled her in a study that is trying to determine the best way to rehydrate children while they have Diabetic Ketoacidosis. Today we had a follow up appointment in that study. Today they gave her tests to test her cognitive abilities. Unfortunately, the appointment went longer than we thought so we had less time at the zoo. :-(
We arrived at the zoo around 12:30 and immediately bought our Safari passes. Our first stop was the bush dog. A bush dog looks a little like a cross between a fox and a bear. He's really kind of cute. He was dozing in the shade even though it really wasn't terribly hot out. I suppose it was hotter for him since he's got all hat fur on! We then visited the giant anteater, the black rhinoceros and the sacred ibis. We also stopped at the cheetah pen but the cheetahs weren't out. We saw then saw the hyenas, the dwarf mongoose and got some really cool pictures of the hippos! Hippos are pretty cool. Our next stop was the Asian elephants where they had this huge pen but only one elephant. He was cooling off in the water. Ever once in a while he would raise his trunk and splash himself with it. Then there was another pen with several more elephants. I don't understand why they had such a huge pen with what looked like one small elephant and then another pen that was much smaller with several elephants. Maybe the pens join together and I just couldn't see it. We took a quick stroll through the exhibit that shows the Missouri fish (and smells like bleach and moth balls) and then we were off to see the bugs!
The bugs were kind of cool although it's difficult to take pictures of them. Some of their "cages" are small and of course they like to hide. We saw pill bugs, which incidentally are not bugs at all, centipedes, tarantulas, a praying mantis, many types of beetles and many others! What was really cool was the butterfly exhibit. They have a big dome with lots of flowers and plants and you go in and the butterflies just fly around you. Sometimes they land on you. The kids all love that! None landed on us today and it was hard to get pictures because the butterflies flit around so fast! Well, that and I'm a poor photographer. :-(
Next on our agenda was to get air brush tattoos! My daughter got a penguin on her arm and yes, I got one too. I got a dolphin on my ankle. It was fun. We next visited the stingrays. My daughter wanted to feed them but when it came time, she chickened out. So we gave the fish to another little boy who chickened out as well and his father ended up doing it. LOL! We spent quite a bit of time with the stingrays. They are fascinating and my daughter loved touching them! We were then off to see the bears and the penguins. Our favorite exhibit is the penguins so we planned to spend quite a bit of time in the penguin house. We took lots of pictures and watched them for a bit. Then we perused the penguin gift shop and of course my daughter came home with a new stuffed penguin to add to her collection! After the penguins we meandered over to the carousel and my daughter rode it twice....or maybe it was three times? I can't remember. She met a little girl there who was from Ohio and visiting her grandparents in the same town my dad lives! She was the same age as my daughter. My daughter's new friend was going to ride the train so we went along and they sat together while we rode through the zoo. Unfortunately it was time for the zoo to close so we rode the train all the way around then had to get off to go home.
We missed the reptile house, the cats, the giraffes, the primate house, and the birds so we will have to go back. I think we will go early in the morning so we can spend the entire day there and see everything the zoo has to offer!
I don't know how far we walked but we walked for five hours and that in my book counts as a good bit of exercise even if it wasn't a run. It was a wonderful day and I enjoyed every minute with my daughter. Family time is important too!
Happy Running!
KEA
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