Saturday, May 10, 2008

Places You Should Go

I'm not a huge fan of zoos. I've been to a few where I've wanted to call PETA, and beg them to come and shut the place down. The Knoxville Zoo, however, is a different story. While I still feel for the animals that spend their lives in "enclosures" that are too small (could they ever be big enough!?!?), at least this zoo makes an attempt to provide a clean, "natural" environment for their animals. The other huge plus is that they have wonderful exhibits for children, and there is a remarkable children's' play area. We visit just so the kids can run through the play area, splash in their lily pond river, pick chicken "eggs", brush the goats, and I can eat ice cream from the refreshment center that is so conveniently placed in the middle! Perfecto!

My parents were recently in town, and we went mostly to see the new butterfly exhibit. I gave the camera to my oldest who took a few snaps. Enjoy and drop by for a visit if you are ever crusin' down I-40. It's worth the stop!

Trying to get my kids to move along. What was causing such excitement?

These wonderful little seed pods that look like whirly birds! Forget the animals (except the pooping elephant of course). For the first part of our visit the only thing my kids wanted to do was play with these things. It's the presents vs. cardboard boxes at Christmas theory. Anything free is going to keep them happy!

The Monarchs were everywhere and just beautiful.

David was amazed, and somewhat jealous, that a butterfly landed on his PaPa. He tried so hard, without any luck, to have one land on him. The best thing to do was to be quiet and still, two things that lowered his chances considerably.

Not a bad shot for a 8 year old.

No comments: