Cool!
We went to the zoo yesterday. I used to work in a zoo (volunteer, when I was a teenager), and what I loved most was getting there before they opened for the day, just me, the animals and some zookeepers.
We've had a run of weird weather, and it was warm for a long time and then took a big plunge. (A couple of days ago it was a high of 69 and a low of 29.
) Yesterday it was cold but clear, and I thought it might be a good day to avoid crowds at the zoo.
Was it ever!!!
There is a new baby elephant at the zoo who we've attempted to see many times but either he's not on exhibit or the lines have been insane. Yesterday, we went in, and there was nobody else in the whole place. Us, a couple of rhinos, a zookeeper, a mama elephant, and the cutest baby elephant in the universe. That was it.
So we watched the elephant for a really long time, and since they hadn't seen many people that day they were interested in us, too, especially the baby. Sozlet kept waving at him and he kept stopping and waving his trunk at her, and she'd exclaim that he was waving at her with glee, and then mama elephant would come back and kinda hustle him along.
He had this bristly hair all over his head, and had this little baby trunk that he didn't totally know what to do with and would occasionally stick in his mouth like a baby sticking his thumb in his mouth.
The mama kept close tabs on him -- one time he was following her and then got distracted by the trunk of a tree in the exhibit, she kept walking a bit, then tensed and looked behind her, relaxed when she saw him, but came back quickly and pushed him along with her trunk, a clear "stay close!" message.
Then the zookeeper (on the other side of glass, so couldn't talk but smiling at each other), fed the rhinos right next to the glass, so we could sit there and watch the enormous rubbery mouth whuffle up the rhino chow from a distance of 5 feet or so.
It was like that throughout the whole zoo, we got to claim prime positions and stay there as long as we wanted, and the animals were bored and interested in us. It was great.
