Year 5, October 7th, 2020: The Indianapolis Zoo, 2020

What a fun day! I wish I had had time to write this that night because I had so many great feelings about it! We got there on time, didn't have to pay the parking fee, stayed until our feet hurt and made lots of memories with lots of giggles and learning, with very little fighting. I just LOVE taking Abishai to all the places I've taken the other kids. Especially when the other kids take an interest in helping Abishai notice things. The laughs and giggles and words that they put in the penguins' beaks while they swam and dove set the tone for the rest of the day. For as much as these three fight, when they have a moment of playing together, it's music to my ears and gives me hope that we are doing something right. And then as I type this, they are playing, but being repetitive and I can't think, lol. We had to get up super early for us, but were one of the first ones there. We paid less than 50% because we went as a group. I think I will be able to come up with more stories as I look at all the pictures. I got some great ones with the DSLR, so I won't journal all of them, but wanted to share. And the videos I will put in a playlist. Except for the weird sounds the male lion(s) was making. I'll share that one directly. We weren't sure why it was behind a curtain and why it was making the sound, but oh well. 

Zoo playlist:

Indianapolis Zoo, October 7th, 2020

As we waited, I reminded the kids that these are the USA flag, Indiana State Flag with it's 19 stars for being the 19th state to join the union and the City of Indianapolis flag, with it's crossroads logo. It was a gorgeous day! 65 in the morning, reaching 80 by the time we left. Not humid. Gorgeous!

We found Nemo, again. Abishai didn't care. He wanted to get back to the seals and sea lions.

Lots of pictures of the penguins. We all love penguins. Actually, this time, I didn't name them the Penguins of Madcasgar names because I was just enjoying my own kids' antics including Abishai's penguin waddle.

Spider monkeys I think. We didn't stay too long, but I did try to remind them that there monkeys of all ages in the cage and they were a family group with a hierarchy.

And where are you going?

One of the older ones.

I had several dollars worth of quarters in my purse so we decided to take advantage of the pressed pennies machines. We really need to get one of their folios for them since we've collected more than a dozen of them over the years especially at the zoo and the children's museum.

The gibbons with their long arms and just hanging around and swinging from limb to limb. Keturah was interested in the mailbox they had in their cage to play with. It had some holes cut into it as well.

Two types of gibbons and sizes.

Bamboo grooves! I took these pics for Jared.

The bamboo looked just like ours at home.

Several different breeds of macaws. Because we went into forests first and then the dolphin show and desserts, the light was coming in from the east making it difficult to see. Also, more of the animals were awake that morning because of the cooler temperatures.

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Abishai kept talking about the snakes. We did spend a bit more time in there than usual. This one was trying to get out of the top of it's cage and it was venomous!

Both Justin and Abishai raced the "cheetah" and Justin got up to 20 feet before the "cheetah" took over. That was the new record of the day! Abishai thought he was racing a real cheetah but thankfully, he wasn't too disappointed when he realized it was a machine.

His little stance with his hands poised flat and his elbows at right angles is so cute! I guess he's watched a few movies with runners in it!

I let them do one ride and Abishai was adamant about the carousel, although we could do the carousel cheaper at the children's museum. $3 per person and I rode free. Not too bad. They kept some animals off limits for social distancing so Abishai didn't get the shark that he wanted. Justin decided not to ride it because he just wanted to get home. It's nice when I can say yes to things like this though. And overall, the crowds and social distancing thing wasn't horrible. We did have to wear masks in buildings and in lines. I developed a zit that day which has since burst, then gotten raw on Thursday when I wore the mask for several hours straight, and scabbed over. It was 1/4-1/2 inch diameter. For a simple zit. But because you breathing in your own warm moist air, it caused a big problem. It was not fun. You do have to get your tickets online because they are selling less tickets per hr for social distancing. But we did get tickets for the dolphin show! Yeah!

The shark he wanted to ride.

He's getting so big! He could reach further down, but check out those long, lean legs!

Red Panda.

Uh, we cracked up when we opened our new ice cream and found these swirly patterns. It's hard not to think dirty sometimes and now that the kids are older, they understand what I'm talking about.

I didn't find the Llama Llama one but these are cool names and flavors. I took bites of the Unicorn Swirl not knowing it had animal crackers in it and well, I had a bit more pain in my low back the next day. It doesn't take much gluten to do that to me.

Cheaper ice cream when you do it at home and less messy.

Our feet definitely felt like we walked 10,000 steps today!

Keep Calm and Homeschool On. It's easy to find me when I got to a homeschool field trip!

Since I have my location on, apparently Jared can easily find me and my phone on his locator app. He knew exactly when I left. How crazy is that? But he refuses to put his locator on. It would be nice if he would. I know the tech companies collect data and it can be corrupted and used wrongly by people. But I also want to know where my children are, too. Interesting technology though.

Pretty warm start to October.

Our very own spider monkey!

One exhausted monkey! I found him like this right before I went to bed at midnight. He did roll over and I put his blanket on him, but he still slept on the floor. He says it's more comfortable.

Now for the DSLR photo. Seals and sea lions! Abishai asked why they were all crowding the door and it's because they probably wanted to eat! I think they had just been released into the tank. Maybe they go to an inside tank at night. We don't know, but they did make a lot of noise and chased each other a lot. Loads of energy.

Abishai excitedly pointed out the sting ray! He wanted to touch them at the touch pool but his arms weren't long enough.

Lots of colorful tropical fish.

Lion fish.

Pressed penny machine.

Nice clear photo when you use the DSLR, eh?

So fat!

Fat and taking a nap!

Spider monkeys.

Abishai's cousin, lol.

One minute sit break at the walrus exhibit.

Walrus

Lemurs. Again, Abishai actually didn't put two and two together with these guys and King Julian in the Madagascar movie.

Dolphins playing with their balls in the back before the show.

4 dolphins and one baby joined us today. I think the baby was born in the spring.

A few great splahes. Abishai said the dolphin show was favorite part of the zoo, but he wanted to leave before it was over. I wish the show was less about conservation and more about parts of a dolphin or how they train them. There's just so much talk about saving animals but not much about what they do or what makes them different from other animals.

Lunch was early because some didn't eat a big enough breakfast. And then, Justin spent 10 minutes figuring out why his phone wouldn't charge in the car instead of eating! Um, the car isn't on, so it doesn't charge your phone, goof ball. Sigh.

Abisahi wasn't very impressed or scared or anything standing next to the tiger. I tried to emphasis that the tiger would come after you if it wasn't behind glass. It was pacing as usual. Tigers faces are so large and rounder than other big cats to me. So gorgeous up close like this.

Gibbons.

Justin wish his cousins, lol.

Abishai attempting to climb the rock by running and jumping. We had to shoo him out of the woods a bit.

More pics of the bamboo.

Macaws

I was surprised to find the bear so fast asleep since it was still pretty early in the day. We saw this one's nose twitch while he slept halfway in the water and halfway on the log. Hilarious! Gives new meaning to "water bed."

Justin's turn for the coin machine. I love these coins, too. I have a pressed penny from the Kentucky Horse Park in Lexington, KY from 1998 when my mom and I went. It's I think with my childhood stuff. It's a pretty cheap sovereign, too. $0.50 to do it and then a penny. And I happened to have some pretty new pennies we could use, too, so they were nice and shiny. I supposed you could still use the pennies as currency since it didn't change the amount of metal in it. Hm,...

They loved seeing the prairie dogs digging around and hiding out in the den. The zoo uses a pipe as their den so it's not really a tunnel like they would dig, but it's close to the class so you can see under the ground.

Moderate size tortise. Didn't phase Abishai. He just wanted to see snakes.

A couple of dozen snakes from all over the world, some poisonous, too.

This python is not poisonous, just big.

These two are the venomous snakes of Indiana.

Don't mess with this one! Super poisonous!

Very quiet orangatans today. Just a couple of adults and one baby in the main enclosure and one big one in a side enclosure. This was looked pitiful. His/her hair looked like it could be a wig on a person. I had Abishai go up to the glass and make kissing faces of it. Not much of a response but I felt kind of bad.

Taking a nap now for his big adventure later. I just want to reach out and brush it!

Flamingos!

Justin likes to stand on just one leg. I used to but can't very easily anymore because of my weight.

Bungies I think. We didn't have the feeding sticks so Abishai wanted to move on quickly.

Ostrich. 3 of them, no eggs.

Two out of three white rhinos taking a nap. The other one was talking to us though.

Two lioness. Ever since the zookeeper died last year, they've been keeping a better eye on them. The male is separated and they redid some of the fencing. They also added food chutes for them so they didn't have to go into the enclosure as often.

The male lion was makings some really odd huffing sounds (see the video below). And it wasn't roaring. My friend Debi said it did it one time when they were on a field trip to the zoo.

Keturah had heard about the new elephant enclosure on the radio. I think it's so they can isolate them if they get sick again. Last year, some of the elephants got really sick and at least one of them died. They also made it so they could do an interactive piece again. They used to have an elephant show but then they redid the farm animals to the birds or it was where the splash pad was. Well, the splash pad is now a walking flower garden. AND, they took out the regular playground, too! What?! It looks like it's been gone for awhile. It wasn't that old and was very solid. Weird.

Our highlight with the elephants was seeing it pee and poo. That was a lot of pee and a huge dump! Abishai found it hilarious!

Do all ostriches look this dirty? Kind of mangy.

It was already warm, so the cheetahs were hanging out in the valley. They are such small cats compared to the lion and the tiger.

Yazoo? or whatever breed he is. From Aladdin I think.

Not native to Indiana porcupine. HUGE spines.

There's the warthog! We couldn't find him/her for a moment since they revamped their space. When you go to the zoo, you see all your favorites from kids' cartoon movies: Timon and Pumba and others from Lion King, like the blue butted monkeys, and of course lions. Penguins, lions, zebras, and giraffes (which weren't on display today), and ring tailed leaping lemurs from Madagascar. Dory and Nemo and Marlin and Mr. Ray and sharks and Bubbles and others from Finding Nemo.

So, we had an excellent, memorable day. The best part was the weather and just enjoying it. Sometimes I get so caught up in schoolwork, I forget to enjoy my favorite season. We spent the next few days out and about as well. So heavenly! Lots of socializing this week and I'm not really all that exhausted from it because it's been mostly another adult and I with kids being mostly occupied. We did tire out about 1:30pm on Wednseday at the zoo. We had been there since 9. I was glad because we had other things at t=home to do and I had Bible study.  No one says we have to stay from open to close. We took our time and stopped for awhile at some of the specific spots. And others we just said hi to that animal and moved on. It was all good. It was GREAT!

The End