NC Zoo Take 2

Who's the happiest to be at the Zoo again?  That's right, our little animal lover!

We stayed on the North American side, since last time was mostly the African side.  It was a lot more relaxed this time since we didn't feel like we needed to see everything, and I'm not waddling too fast these days.

The turtles were a big hit.

This lady had a red tail hawk.  We thought it was cool to look at for a sec, but she was really interested in telling us all the drama that it has suffered since it lives next to the playground that is under renovation.  Thankfully we have a toddler that likes to run so we were able to cut it short.

C gets stuck in spots and can't move on without multiple explorations.  Its quite entertaining to watch. She just runs in circles, stopping and squatting every once in awhile for a closer view of something.  This mosaic captured her for several minutes.

I guess this is what I'd do all day too if I was taken out of the arctic to the tropics.

The zoo has a pretty creative play area that makes you feel like the size of an ant since everything small is super sized. Here's Dad and Cambers sliding down the leaf...

and C climbing back up it.

The black bears definitely enticed her to come join them.

This brought back a lot of memories of Yellowstone last summer where we were hiking to a waterfall and turned the corner to an entire mountainside filled with Bison- the closest being about 25 feet away.  It was a little anticlimactic seeing them behind a railing.

My giant buddy... and a Bison statue. That tummy sure is getting large.

I kind of feel bad having this photo in with all these wild animals, but we saw these Amish people and were so excited/startled, that I snapped a quick one of them.  We wondered how they got to the zoo, and I'm not going to lie, I looked for a horse and buggy in the parking lot when we left (to no avail).

In the Aviary Green house, little sweaty head discovered and rediscovered x 15 the floor air vents that blew her hair (and my skirt) up.  I don't think she found a single bird in there she was so consumed with these.

On our daily walks I'm always picking leaves for her to carry.  She was quite confused why I wouldn't pick them for her in the tropical bubble, and took matters into her own hands.