All in a Day at the Zoo

Yesterday, Moose was working from home, so i had to distract Cookie Monster for a little while. We also had a couple errands to run for school and church, which would take us all the way to Lakewood. So we decided to distract ourselves at the Tacoma zoo.

I forgot how rude late summer crowds can be at venues like the zoo. Thankfully, the animals cooperated and were out to be seen. Well, all except C.m.'s favourite polar bears.

There was a pile of lazy lemurs. That one on the end seems to be saying, "Ack! I can't breathe! Loosen up the tail a little bit will ya, Madge?"

We were very surprised to see meerkats!

Half the time, they seemed to be trying to plan an escape.

"Whatcha looking at, Bub?"

The arctic foxes were being hand fed.

This one seemed to be receiving training on how to wait for his food from the handler. :o)


The otters were in heaven.

The puffins were preening.

Cookie Monster was enamoured with the new walruses.

We took a break and watched an animal show where the birds of prey fly

straight over your head.
This is a vulture.

This guy was the finale.

The main attraction was the two new bengal tiger cubs.

C.m. and i agreed that we were very happy human moms don't have to

clean their babies like tiger moms do. :o)

After our zoo adventure...

we visited a little area of town outside of Pt. Defiance

where there is a gathering of antique stores and a couple of sweet eateries.

We had a delightful lunch at here.

Then walked a couple blocks down the street to Ruston and had an old fashioned ice cream soda.

To complete the experience, we headed home through the Pt. Ruston Tunnel. I love this tunnel...it's one of those nostalgic pieces that most people hate because their attrocious SUVs don't fit in it, but to lovers of old, it's like riding the teacups at Disneyland! Before entering, you have to turn on your lights and honk your horn so the people on the other end know you are coming. The tunnel is just wide enough for two modestly sized modern cars to pass.

You can imagine my delight when just as i grabbed my camera i hear "ah-oog-ga, rrhhhlll, ah-oog-ga" from the old motorcar pictured above. I *love* it when that happens!!

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

We are off to look at farms for our little family to relocate to.