The Zoo

I fell in love with the Knoxville Zoo once again. I took a 3-year old little girl yesterday, and she had so much fun. It was a perfect day for the zoo. The sun was out, and it was wonderfully warm. There was also a nice breeze that blew right when it seemed like it might be a little too warm to be standing directly in the sun. We started off at the black bears, and it was then that I realized the slight difficulty I would have. When I spotted an animal that was a little more difficult to see right away, I would try to point it out to the kid. I don't know if you have ever tried this, but it can be a bit harder to explain this kind of thing to a 3-year old. The cheetahs were the worst. There were two of them laying on the ground (which was covered in leaves) and leaning against a tree. They were also at the very back of the enclosure. I wanted to say, "Look past the green bush, and inbetween the two big trees." The trouble is: this is not little kid language. So, all I could say was, "They are on the ground...beside that tree in the back." She tried to find them for about 5 minutes, but no luck. With a little time and effort, I was able to help her find all of the others. When we got to the camels, she decided she wanted to ride them. At first, I wasn't so sure about letting her do it, but I finally agreed. My fear was that they would sit her on the camel, and she would start screaming. But, no.....she loved it. In fact, when we were leaving later in the afternoon, she wanted to do it again. We didn't have time for that though.

The funniest part of the day was after she rode the camel. There were two 9-month old baby camels standing beside the fence. We went to pet them for a few minutes, and one decided it was going to make a snack out of her stroller! I tried to pull the stroller out of the camel's mouth, whiile the little girl is saying, "No, no, no! Camel, no!" It was great. No damage was done to the stroller......it was just a little wet. Fun stuff.