Let's Zoo This Thing

What secret do all citizens of Cuyahoga County know? Where is the one place you can find Cuyahoga Co. residents of each race, religion, and income bracket during the first day of the week? Everyone knows that the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo is FREE to Cuy Co. residents every Monday!


Wife has been begging me to make our annual trip to the zoo all summer. Being the intelligent man I am, I obviously chose against going in the summer. Three reasons: 1.Too many summer camp kids (they come in bus loads and travel in amoeba-like groups of neon green t-shirts that swallow people up as they walk along).  2.Too many moms taking their kids who are out of school (they smudge their peanut butter and jelly finger prints on every glass surface the zoo owns, effectively inhibiting my view of the wildlife).  And 3.Parking is impossible (You have to park at the Rainforest...literally. Not the Cleveland one that's there at the zoo, the one that's being chopped down in the Amazon. That's the reason they're chopping the rainforests down, to make room for parking in Cleveland).


Those three were the big reasons why we chose to go to free Monday at the zoo in the fall. Besides, the weather was mid-70's and spot on today. This zoo trip was different though. This is the first zoo time we've had where Wife was pregnant. We knew that we would have to walk at a slower pace and take more frequent breaks. That's fine. She was excited to go, and I was happy to be able to spend our off day together.


After driving to the wrong entrance of the park, parking 3/4 mile away, and waiting in an unnecessary ticket line, we got to the zoo. We brought our camera to take some pics of us enjoying the day, then I had a great idea: why don't we take pictures of all the animals, then make some sort of photo book on Shutterfly that we could read to the Kicker when he's born? This was on of my best yet. We wouldn't show him some book company's pictures, we could show him our own! And Shutterfly has this cool service where you can design a book online of your own pictures and words, and they send you a hardbound copy of it in the mail. I can see us reading it to Kicker, showing him lions, and tigers, and monkeys and stuff - all pictures we took.


We got to work snapping some real lively shots. Without going into much detail, here are some of the pics...

Take a good look. If we decide to use these pictures for a "baby's first book of animals" type deal, our poor kid is gonna be at a major disadvantage come kindergarten. He'll be the only 6yr old in the class who thinks wildlife is either always sleeping, or always looking the opposite direction. He will be able to recognize animals by their butts though. Not many kids can do that. 


These are the chances we take when going to the zoo. I was praying that the polar bear would just do just one cannonball into the frigid waters of his exhibit. Or that the cheetahs would want to spend one quick minute sprinting around their cage. This was not the case. The Kicker will have to be content with some pretty lame photos of some pretty bored animals. (seriously though, love the CleMetZoo)


As we were leaving, we both realized something: the next time we visit the zoo, we're going to be pushing a stroller. What a weird thought. We're probably going to want to put him in a neon green shirt to keep track of him better; and since it's easy to pack, he's going to have a PB&J for lunch when we bring him too. 

Species: Tyrannosaurs Wifeus

Location: Seemingly Everywhere

This photo was taken of a pregnant human female at a zoo. Here, she has visited a local watering hole while deciding to take a break after much travel on her feet. In her hands is the currency humans use to trade for food and drink. Before approaching the watering hole, the pregnant female successfully negotiated the currency away from the alpha male husband. The alpha male husband has the last laugh though, as he posts this picture up on his electronic internet story center known as a blog.