I’ll admit that we were a little concerned about rain, but as it turned out, we needn’t have been. It was an absolutely beautiful day to spend at the zoo! We met up with a whole bunch of Jessica’s side of the family — including two of Namine’s cousins.
The first stop we made was to the reptile, amphibian, and aquatic house. There we saw all manner of creatures as befitted the name of the building. The exhibits have plaques providing some information about each animal, and Namine enjoyed learning more about them.
I think the one animal inside the reptile house which Namine was most excited to see was the King Cobra. She was slightly disappointed that it did not open its hood — but when reminded that it only did that when it felt threatened, she was glad it did not.
What the cobra did do was follow Namine on the other side of the glass. It made her (and us) thankful that the glass was there. Let’s have no surprises like in Harry Potter, thank you very much.
On our way around outside, we saw plenty of peafowl. We were, at one point, treated to something none of us had ever before witnessed: the attempted wooing of a female. A male was out in full display, performing a mating dance for a female. She kept trying to get away from him, only to be chased, circled, and cornered again.
There were a whole bunch of males in the same area, and another one of them soon got the same idea. As soon as he got close, though, the first male chased him off. The first male kept doing his dance, only to be repeatedly rebuffed.
A new exhibit — which I knew nothing about until today — is one containing LEGO (it’s “LEGO” not “Lego”) sculptures of different animals. Each creation is thousands of bricks, having taken the creator hundreds of hours for each one to make. They were all seriously impressive.
Before we left, we simply had to ride the train. Namine impressed upon me the importance of riding with her cousins, sans adults. Of course, I understood. This also was important to me, because Jessica and I got to spend some time just the two of us.
I will note that there is nothing accessible about transferring Namine (or anyone, really) from a wheelchair to a train car. This was especially true in our case, where she wanted to ride in a car as close to the caboose as possible. This meant carrying her past the pavement and across gravel, which I fortunately am still capable of doing.
The train ride, and similarly the entire day at the zoo, was over far too soon. Still, we all had a wonderful time. It was good seeing family again, sharing beautiful weather, good times, and laughs.
Leave a Reply