To the zoo we go

We're in Louisville for my Spring break. Last week, when we were planning our trip, my mom mentioned that we could visit the Louisville Zoo. They have a 1-year-old elephant named Scotty. I don't remember how Tobin first heard the phrase "baby elephant," but it's been a regular part of his vocabulary ever since. After some rain in the morning, the skies cleared Monday afternoon for our trip. Tobin, his mom and dad, and his granddad and grandma all piled in the van and headed off to the zoo. We had such a good time we stayed until the zoo closed for the day. The weather was perfect and Tobin was in good spirits. Below are a few pictures and a couple of videos we'd like to share with you.

First, we saw giraffes, which Tobin loves because of the song "Joshua Giraffe" by Raffi. Tobin kept saying "Big Josh!" when we saw them.
After that, we saw the elephants. Tobin correctly identified them (ep-pitants & baby ep-pitant alike). He pointed to them and even remarked "Pee-yew poop" when one of the elephants deposited significantly.


We were in for a treat next when we heard a lion roaring as we rounded the corner from the elephants. Here's what Tobin had to say:

On our way to see the gorilla exhibit, Tobin saw monkeys and zebras and then had his first adventure: a cut-through off the sidewalk called the "Hippo Trail." Tobin (with some encouragement from me the first time) had to duck under a log to rejoin the path on the other side. He loved it, even after falling down and getting himself dirty once. His face does a better job communicating his feelings about the Hippo trail than I can:

After seeing gorillas, we saw lorikeets in an open exhibit. According to their keeper, they're very social birds. It took them only a few minutes to show it:



Shortly after, Tobin found the concrete tortoise that he loved as much as any real animal in the zoo. We have a few pictures of him on the tortoise at our flickr site. After climbing on the tortoise for a while, Tobin noticed the birds: ducks and peacocks. He chased them around for 10 or 15 minutes. I was lucky enough to get him on video:

Tobin brought home a stuffed giraffe and a stuffed turtle from his first zoo trip, but the memories I'll keep from his first trip to the zoo are my souvenirs. Granddad suggested a dinner out, so we left the zoo for a nice meal (see Allison's previous post).