Great Start to Summer

Memorial Day weekend is known as the unofficial start to summer. Usually in Arizona Memorial Day weekend is pretty hot. It is usually already over a 100 degrees and the weekend is spent swimming or staying inside. This year it is completely different and that allowed us to do something we would not have been able to do.


This past week has been a strange weather week. Last Monday it was 110 degrees here and by Friday the high was just 69 degrees. It rained on Friday. (I heard on the news that it is only the 2nd time since they started to record weather that it rained on May 23rd.) This morning there was still a few raindrops but the day looked like it was going to be wonderful. So we decided to spend the day outside and Lauren wanted to go to the small Wildlife Zoo.

This is a small zoo and seems to be a bit run down. The thing I like about it is that you can still get pretty close to the animals. They have a place were you can feed the giraffes and a place you can feed parrots. The great thing is that the zoo is not that busy so you can do a lot without having to wait in lines.






One example of this is the train. It goes through some of the animals areas but there is never a line. The driver of the train is also the one that collects the money. So when train pulls up the driver gets off and collects for the next trip then gets back on the train and drives.





There is also skyride. It looks like an old ski lift and it goes across the zoo. Lauren loves this ride. she thinks it is so cool to look down over the animals. I tried to take some pictures of her but she always gets scared that I am going to fall.




Here are some pictures of Lauren feeding the parrots. They give you apples and you put them on your hand and hold your hand up in the air. The birds will fly to your hand and land on your arm and eat the apple right from your hand. Lauren did it a few times. When the first one landed it scared her a bit but she stood there and let it land and eat the apple. She got to feed two of them before she had done it enough and we left.

The zoo, like most, has a petting zoo. You can buy these pelts and feed them. These animals become a bit aggressive. If you have the pelts when you walk in they almost attack you. They start to bit your clothes and chase you to get the pelts. I hate being in there but Lauren can spend all day petting and feeding the animals.

We were walking to the playground and there was a peacock that had just put up it's feathers. It was so pretty. I had to try to get a picture with Lauren. My camera has an auto focus so it focused on Lauren and the peacock was blurry, so here is a picture of the peacock and the one below is the try with Lauren.

Who would have thought that it would be chilly enough on May 24th to wear a jacket in Phoenix. But the skyride was a bit chilly and when we got off it was a bit overcast and Lauren put on her jacket. We were one of the only ones at the zoo in shorts. Almost all had on long pants. (We have pretty thin blood here in Arizona!)






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This is a picture from the skyride. Lauren loves this ride. It was the first thing we did when we got to the zoo. Lauren loves to sing when we are up there. So when we passed over the camels she had to sing "the camel has 5 humps" song. Then we sing a ton of other animal songs.

As I stated above you get to get pretty close to the animals. There is a tower that you climb up and you can feed the giraffes. You again have to buy pelts and the giraffes will stick out their tongue and you put the pelts right on the tongue. Lauren thinks this is pretty fun.

One thing about this zoo is that you have to bring a ton of quarters. There are pelt machines everywhere and so you go through a ton of quarters. I knew this from the last time so before we came I got a roll of quarters. It made things much easier.

Overall, we had a great day and it was a great start to the Memorial Day weekend. We have a cookout with friends tomorrow so it should just continue to be a fun weekend.

Happy start of summer!!!