A Day at the Zoo

It is amazing to think Jackson is walking on the same walkways and seeing some of the same animals I saw when I was a little boy.  The Bronx Zoo was always such a place of wonder for me and my family.  I know we were really excited to introduce Jax to such a magnificent place.  (Add in that Jax hero Peppa Pig was going to be making an exclusive appearance as part of the reopening of The Bronx Zoo Chldren’s Zoo and you have the event of the lifetime.)

The experience was nothing short of epic… the car ride itself was an adventure for the ages, including making two pit stops within ten minutes of leaving the house… Our third stop a half an hour later resulted in Jax’ bottle spilling four out of the seven ounces of milk it contained… already off to a successful start!

At least we had an interesting time once we got there.  Tailgating at the zoo?

The trip consisted of walking 400 miles… trying to read a map (the key word being “TRYING”), it also consisted of realizing that this is exactly how I want to spend my Saturdays… with my family.

Overall we were able to visit so many different exhibits and really experience so many different things.  Jax was interested in the different animals, he loved the rhinoceros (or the rhinosaurus, the dinosaur, as Steph thought it was called).  He wanted to jump in and crawl around with the prairie dogs, he wanted to pet a polar bear and he most definitely wanted to fight a llama.

Here’s  where things got sketchy.  Here is where mom and dad and auntie about lost their minds.

Have you ever wondered what it looks like when an alpaca comes at you 100 MPH?  Well wonder no more… call that #ClickBait… call it creative marketing… call it whatever you want… but either way… i just hooked you.  I just did you a favor.  I absolutely got your juices flowing.  Now you know how Jax felt.

The adrenaline brought on by a wild animal who is about to swallow you whole will allow you to run a marathon or lift a car off of a pinned down puppy.  He was in panic mode.  Needless to say he was not a fan of this guy:

Jax learned a lot during this trip to the zoo.  The most important… you can’t domesticate an undomesticated monster like a llama. I know we were in the children’s zoo and this was the part of the zoo where touching the animals was encouraged… but I’m pretty sure there’s signs every five feet at every zoo that warn you about these dangerous creatures you are about to interact with.  Now Jax knows why.

Llamas don’t like when people try to get all up in their business.  They probably don’t like being caged up and used for people’s amusement.  They want to be out in the wild doing llama things… hooking up with llama chicks and going to llama parties.  Instead they sit in captivity all day long while moms and dads force their kids to smile and pet their noses and feed them that crappy .25 cent food from the gumball machine thing.  Seeing a damn camera being whipped out only reminds them that they are just caged up and stuck forever.

This is how the zoo ended… with mommy and auntie screaming.

“Annnnnd that’s the zoo, kids.  Let’s go home because mom and Auntie Tricia need a change of underwear.”