Phoenix Zoo

We had lots of fun at the Zoo! I was really impressed with how close we were to some of the animals. You were really able to appreciate their size. The kids loved the Little People playground. Notice the picture of Wilson in the sandbox with my hand on top of his--all he wanted to do was grab handfuls of sand and throw them while saying, "oh!" He is such a boy! I tried to get Whitney to go into the petting zoo, but her response was a firm, "No." I even suggested that I would go in with her, "No." We watched from the fence, but there was no way she was going in. At one point we started walking through a trail exhibit called the Forest of Ocu. It had an abandoned jeep and research shack display that looked cool. The first thing we saw was a pool of fish from the Amazon--DISGUSTING. I have a pretty serious fear of fish, so the huge black fish was giving me the creeps! Then we walked around to another exhibit with an Andean Bear. While we're looking for the bear a guy with his little girl walks up and says, "Did you guys see that big snake go across the trail?" I was like, "Shut Up. You're joking." He said, "No, we were right behind you and a snake went across the trail in front of us." That was enough for me; I wanted out of the "forest" and back on the asphalt. The guy had also asked us if we thought he should tell someone and I was like Yes! I was pretty much freaking out--I also have a serious fear of snakes. We saw a zoo guy as we were hurrying out and we told him and he said it was probably just a wild snake. I was shaking and couldn't get out fast enough!! So we're back on the regular pathways, and what do you know...there goes the snake slithering across the asphalt. It was probably around 3 feet long. I definitely kept my distance. Later we saw a sign about the "other" (wild) animals of the zoo and we're pretty sure it was a Gopher Snake. At the end of our day we were on another trail area (with concrete sidewalks), but the end of it was the reptile house and I decided I had had enough snakes. So, I started walking back to the main area by myself, but then totally started feeling nervous about seeing a snake again, so I started walking faster and a little lizard jumped in the bushes next to me--that did it for me and I screamed a little and jogged back to the main zoo area. Talk about high blood pressure! Probably the most amazing thing I did that day was buy my kids stuffed animals! I am not a nice mom--I don't like stuffed animals and the only ones we have are ones that were given to us. I took Whitney into the zoo store and she picked out a pink (surprise there) stuffed tiger and would not be deterred, so we picked a stuffed Rhino for Wilson. All in all, it was a great day at the zoo!