Family Trip to the Kansas City Zoo

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Finally a day that was not raining and although cool, the weather was nice enough to be outside. None of us felt like a simple hike at the state park that we always go to so we decided to go to the Kansas City Zoo instead. The kids had wanted to see the polar bear exhibit anyway so we packed some sandwiches and began the hour drive to the zoo.
One milestone we hit this year, it is the first year we did not have to push a stroller around, though after lugging two cameras and lenses I would have gladly pushed a stroller just for those.
A small surprise was that there were no lines at the ticket booths so we got our pass and were inside the gate within a matter of minutes. The kids immediately ran to the North American River Otters habitat only to find them sleeping on top of some stacked gray stone. With not much happening here, we strolled over to the Polar Bear Passage.
I figured there would be a larger crowd than there was at the Polar Bear Passage, but the kids were able to get right up to the glass and watch Nikita swim by in the semi-clouded blue water. Nikita is one of the Zoos more recent additions and was a big hit with all the kids that stood there laughing every time he would flip around in the water.
The Tiger Trail (Asia) and Australia are pretty close together. The youngest orangutan stole the show while climbing to the top of the enclosure; he was using some type of red rod to snag a branch that was just out of reach. The Red Panda was sleeping in the top of a fallen tree in its habitat and the tigers were chilling in the cool air, just close enough to get some decent photographs of them.
Australia is home to a large mob of red kangaroo that are allowed to run free and seem quite content lounging around the pond, well out of reach of curious children. New Guinea Singing Dogs can also be found running amongst the freshly bloomed trees in their environment. A small petting zoo for the kids has a few sheep running around, but they only allow themselves to be petted when you are bearing food as payment. Around the bend from that are the camels, their pen sits atop a small rise which can make it difficult for small children to view them. After that my son had decided he was tired of waiting to ride the train so we hurried to the train stop and boarded the train which took us back around towards the entrance. Since we wanted to go to Africa, we rode the train halfway around and disembarked beginning the walk to Africa. Of course we could not go any further without stopping and seeing the African elephants.
In Africa the kids were tickled to see the lions lounging lazily in the shade and the warthogs lying in the mud pits. A troop of baboon calls Africa home along with some African Wild Dogs and of course the meerkats scurrying around trying to get the attention of the onlookers.
Africa will soon be home to the Sky Safari, which will take you from the marketplace to the chimpanzee habitat and back again. This new addition should allow for some interesting photographs of the African animals that it will travel over. Unfortunately, the construction means that the rhino, chimps, zebras, and the giraffes are temporarily off display.
All in all the kids were extremely tired out when we left and to be honest, my feet were quite tired as well. The rain that was supposed to come didn’t and the day actually warmed up very nicely.

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