Hogle Zoo

Last weekend, my mom invited me to go to the zoo with my sister and the nephews. I hadn't been in a few years, so I said yes. They actually had several days of fun planned, but because I had to be to work on Monday, I opted to only go out the day of the zoo.

We decided to ride the train first while the line was still short and the day wasn't too hot yet. It was difficult to get the boys to smile for pictures most of the day, but we managed to capture a few through the day.   

Daxsen kept turning away from his mom when she'd go to take a picture. So I had my camera ready and caught this one. I snapped it just in time because as soon as he realized, he scowled. 

The zoo built a new Africa exhibit a few years ago, but this was the first time I was able to see it. I thought it was pretty cool. I think the giraffe exhibit is much better than it used to be. 

Always have to get a drink out of the lion's head. I remember this being there when I was a kid. 

Some of the different monkey's we saw throughout the day. 

I loved the baby orangutan sitting with his mom.

The gorilla is kind of hard to see, he's hiding in the shade. 

This was probably the first genuine grin we got out of Daxsen. He was trying to climb the statue, so I gave him a boost up. 

Arabian Sand Cat. He was actually in the basket when we walked up, but by the time I got my camera out, he had decided to climb out and lay in the sun on the rock. You'll also notice a theme with most of the cats. They were all doing what cats do best, taking a cat nap!

The Pallas cats were so much fun to watch. The mom had recently had a batch a kittens a few weeks ago and they had just moved them to the exhibit. I could've stayed there all day and watched them play. (They were the only cats that were active while we were at the zoo.) They had a worker set up there to take observations every 15 minutes, so we visited with him for a few minutes. In this display was the mom and 5 babies. The dad was in another display, by the tiger. I happen to mention it would be fun to have one of my own and they laughed and said the zoo keepers would rather deal with the tiger than the dad Pallas cat. I guess they can be quite the handful.  

The father Pallas cat, taking a nap. Doesn't look like much of a handful to me. But I guess he gets pretty wild when they go inside his exhibit. 

Black-footed cat

Leopard

Burrowing Owls

The bears were hard to see, they were just chilling in the shade. I didn't know it, but the polar bear had gotten sick a few months ago and passed away. I was so sad he was gone. I guess they have two polar bears coming this fall, so I'll have to go back then. The polar bears are always my favorite animal to watch. 

Daxsen, the kid who avoided pictures all day, wanted his picture with this statue. First he sat on the head, then the tail, and then in the middle, each time telling his mom to take a picture. 

And then we were back to not wanting our picture taken. 

The special feature the zoo has right now is a huge bug exhibit. There was bug sculptures all over the zoo. Some you could sit on and others were gated off. The tarantula was huge, and it even moved. I had to share this picture because Valex's face cracked me up. 

The tiger wasn't out the first time we came by. But when we walked back a few minutes later, he had come out for a quick minute. He literally walked across his display, smelled the meat they had put out for him and then he walked back and went back into the building where you couldn't see him. He was only out for like 5 minutes, so I was glad we saw him. 

One of the last things we did was ride the carousel. 

As we got to the elephants, we found out they had a show starting in a few minutes, so we decided to get some seats and watch. They had them do a few things, like lay down and leg lifts. It was fun to watch. 

Our last stop was the lions. We had stopped there when we first got there, but all the lions were still inside the building. I'm glad we checked back, because they were all outside at that point. 

Including this one, taking a nap right next to the glass. 

It was super hot all day, but I'm glad I went. It was fun to hang with my nephews for the day.