Earlier in the month, we purchased an annual family pass to the Alaska Zoo. The Zoo is just a short 5 minute drive from our home and it's the perfect outing to fill in the gaps between eating and napping or napping and eating on the weekends.
The Alaska Zoo, in its entirety, can be seen in under an hour. In fact for our maiden voyage, I may have slightly over packed. We met our friends Ryan, Lizzie and Abby in the parking lot. The look on their face was priceless as we unloaded the BOB Duallie, my gigantic diaper bag, 2 water bottles, snacks in a cooler and, oh, their immunization records just to be safe. But I had no idea how big the zoo was, what mood the tykes were going to be in after their nap or how long we were going to be there. Better safe than sorry.
At first I'll admit that I was slightly disappointed (coming from Portland where there is a gigantic zoo!), but I quickly realized that it is a great place to let our boys burn off some energy by running on the boardwalk and also to learn animal sounds and identification (although now they are obsessed with Brown Bear, Brown Bear... and Polar Bear, Polar Bear... more than ever). Additionally, the property is surrounded by trees (which provide some escape from, perhaps, the pouring rain!), little creeks and flowers, all of which distract from the fact that you're also amongst caged animals.
Sure, there aren't any penguins or gorillas or monkeys or giraffes...but the majority of the animals (sans the Amur tigers, Knobby the camel and a few others) are native to the Arctic or Sub-Arctic.
Given that currently there are quite a few trails closed due to bear sightings and moose 'kills', I imagine that we'll be taking many more trips to the zoo this 'summer' and fall. At the Zoo, I can at least take comfort in the fact that we are watching the bears instead of the bears watching us. As sad as that is.
Some photos of our rainy day adventure:
One-horned Dall sheep. These are frequently a roadside photo-op for tourists driving south on the Seward Highway. Oftentimes, the highway is backed-up for miles and one assumes there must a traffic accident...only to find out a few miles down the road that the Dall sheep were climbing the rocks that border the highway and that people had to stop their motor homes in the middle of the highway to take a few photos.
The only monkeys we could find at the Alaska Zoo were these two cuties.
Brown bears are the species that we are trying to avoid on the trails right now. There have been several maulings this summer and we don't plan to be one of them. One mauling occurred on the sweet mountain bike trails behind our old house, which coincidentally is the trial Brook used to ride to and from work. It may be time to up the life insurance policy.
Turkeys are not native to Alaska, in case you were wondering. Gobble-gobble.
I always get confused if this is a musk-ox or a yak. Brook always gets frustrated, but to me, they are both huge and hairy. I am about 99.9% sure this is a musk ox. Although our fellow Zoo go-ers may disagree.
Dad and...(thanks to the glimpse of the shoes in the photo), Finn. Like I stated previously, I get the musk ox and the Himalayan yaks confused. I am about 99.9% sure that two of my boys are standing in front two (well hidden) Himalayan yaks.
Look at me! I'm waterproof! It was a very rainy day in Anchorage which, being a native Oregonian, I welcomed. It's just a different kind of beautiful as far as I'm concerned.
Not sure what is up with my 'surprised' faces in both the photo above and the photo below, but I was obviously having a good time. Reid is the kid on my back.
This black bear was alseep. Not only was he asleep, but he was snoring very loudly.
Reid (l) and Finn (r) trying to bust into the alpaca zone.
I don't believe I've written about Reid's intollerance for dirt, food, miscellaneous debis and/or moisture on his hands and feet. It's a bit strange. If he spills a drop of water on his toes while playing at the water table, playtime comes to a screaching halt and we must remove the offending moisture right then and there. Once removed, playtime resumes. It's the same with dirt and food. In the photo below, he was especially annoyed because, not only did his hand get dirty from attempting to climb the wood railing in order to join the alpacas, but as he showed me the miniscule amount of dirt that was on his hand, raindrops fell and we were faced with two offenders to clean off with a baby wipe.
But as you can see, he was ok after we wiped down his hands...just a bit more careful and now only touching the fence with the finger tips of his left hand.
What rare disease do you think we'll have by the end of the week from these shenanigans?
Twin baby moose! The twinning rate for moose is quite high.
Our kid, Finn.
I am ashamed of myself. This is the second time within the same post that I can't tell which kid is pictured. I cn assure you, this doesn't happen very often. Maybe 4 times in the past 18 months, two of which occured within this post. Of course, I could just make up a name and 99.9% of our faithful blog readers would not know the difference, but I can't bring myself to do it. I'm honest like that. I will say that I think this is Finn, but the kid is making a face that is a trademark of the Reid Rager.
Oh the guilt!
Brook and...a kid. (this DOES NOT count as my 3rd time because the photograph is clearly indistinguishable). They are wearing the same type of jeans and coat (thanks to their pals Henry and Nathan, but have different shirts and shoes, neither or which I can make out clearly enough to identify said kid.
Reid and the one-horned Dall sheep!
The Dall sheep, starring me down. Wonderin' if I took his horn.
Finn (l), Reid (r) and their cool dad.
