St. Louis zoo

Our first vacation field trip was to the St. Louis zoo. It's a fantastic zoo - great exhibits and lots to see. If you're ever in St. Louis, definitely visit this zoo! We didn't get through the whole thing because it was so hot, and that was after 3 hours. It's an all-day venture if you want to see everything.

The unquestionable favorites were the hippos and the penguins. Three of the hippos were sleeping in their pool, and the fourth was swimming in a circle. We sat and watched him for a good 15-20 minutes and he came past the glass to watch us over and over. On each pass, he would poke his nostrils out of the water just long enough to get a breath, and then he was back down to the bottom.

We went to the penguin house when we were pretty overheated, so we loved loved loved that it was dark and actually a little bit cold in the interior house. I certainly didn't want to leave and go back out into the heat. There was a sign that said the room was kept fairly dark because it's currently winter in Antarctica, which is of course their native habitat. Sunny pointed out the difference between the Humboldt and King penguins (I think that's what they were) - apparently, she'd read about them in a book we have kicking around here. I had no idea she knew that, but she launched into an explanation to Grandma. That's my girl! The penguins were hilarious - some of them were swimming back and forth in their pool really fast. When they would get out of the water up onto the rocks, they would just pop straight up with seemingly no push-off at all. There was no way to get a still photo of it - it was much too fast and there was no way to predict when it would happen. I need to ask my dad if he got any video of it.

Our girls at the zoo entrance with Grandma, Aunt T, Aunt E, and Dad. (Grandpa was also with us, but taking more pictures.)

Birdie and the swimming hippo got up close and personal over and over as the hippo swam his laps past the glass where we were watching.

I want a hippopotamus for Christmas ... the story is that the song was actually written with the St. Louis zoo hippos in mind.

In one enclosure were Humboldt penguins (I think).

In the other enclosure were King penguins, which have the same coloring as Emperor penguins but are smaller.

Not your usual carousel horses ... Mom and Birdie on a log with a baby ape.

Grandma on a bear and Posy on a hippo.

Sunny on a Humboldt penguin