Day 24

Philadelphia Zoo (continued)

May 30, 2013, 10:16 AM

As promised here is my tale about the Philadelphia Zoo. . . 

Spanky was very anxious to get started to the zoo, he told Alex to jump in and the two of them were going to try to take off without us, thank God Spanky's little legs really didn't reach the peddles. Steve had to pull him out of the driver's seat. Then Kim showed up sporting her retirement T-shirt. So off we go.

The traffic was terrible getting there. That didn't surprise anyone though, the traffic has never been good around Philadelphia and it has only gotten worse and the slow downs start further out. However if you can make it through the traffic and down the Sure Kill Distress Way, more correctly known as the Schuylkill Expressway, you get right off the highway and are facing the Zoo Garage. Now this is a very highly populated area, and the zoo is a big deal to Philadelphians, so they can get $15 to park cars, but wait, parking is included in our annual membership. So we drive up and in  and we don't have a care in the world. Then the slap in the face by reality hits ya! There are HUNDREDS of school kids coming to the zoo today. Kim, Robert, and Alex went to the window to get their tickets and thankfully the school groups were being ushered in a separate gate and they already have tickets so it really wasn't a problem. We looked at the map and planned our course of attack. Since when you come in everyone is sort of ushered down the same path, it will be a mess trying to see anything with all those school groups going in the same direction. The zoo is pretty much laid out in a loop, so that was our plan, we'd start where most people will end up and go against the flow. This turned out to be the perfect plan. We didn't realize it at the time but the monkey house was pretty much at the beginning and along the path as you come in. It would have been horribly crowded, but cause we hit it toward the end of the day, it was a nice respite in air conditioning AND there was almost no one in there. It gave us an opportunity to speak with one of the zoo keepers and really get up close with the apes. 

Spanky insisted on having his picture taken everywhere. The animals were all calling out greetings to us, some were posing, smiling, and putting on the dog, and there were lots of families visiting with small kids. One little girl took a real shine to Spanky and I was afraid I might have to insist I at least get his shirt and pins back before she makes him her own. My dad and my step-mother were able to join us, which was lots of fun. When we got home each and everyone of us were exhausted. We had dinner, which thankfully we had started before ever leaving the house. The French dip sandwiches were so good to tired and hungry people.

The Philadelphia Zoo is by far one of the country's premier zoos. It is beautiful. It has large animal areas and yet you are still able to see most animals. There are shady walking paths so you aren't being blasted by the sun. It is just a perfect zoo to really spend a day. I'm so glad this is the one we decided to join and financially support. Because of expansions it's is very different than I remember, but it is still the best one so far and by far. 

After dinner Kim, Alex, and I went down to Catherine's to take care of the chickens. Since Catherine and her family are on vacation Alex is taking care of the chickens, cat, and watering plants. Oh the chickens were a riot. We had chickens trying to escape and Alex trying to round them up to go into their house for the night and Kim and I standing around having no idea what to do. I will have to take the camera down tonight to get some of this, for you. 

May 30, 2013, 12:38 PM

Today Steve is going to repair a piece of trim that is hanging from the bottom of the driver's side slide and we are going to take it easy. It's hot here and we are all worn out.