The St. Louis Zoo

On Tuesday the 29th we packed our things and headed out for some breakfast. Everyone was excited because we were going to the St. Louis Zoo, one of the best zoos in the country. It was a nice day, so we were sure we were going to have fun.

We saw some spectacular animals, including bears, giraffes, some really cool birds, hysterical monkeys and terrifying reptiles. We got to pet a real giraffe tail, and the kids loved seeing the peacocks just wandering around the zoo.

But the coolest part of the zoo, figuratively and literally, was the penguin exhibit. You enter a room, and it's freezing cold, and there are penguins EVERYWHERE! All different kinds of penguins too, emperor penguins, rockhoppers, puffins, you name it. They are swimming around, standing guard over the fish bucket, or just keeping watch on the rocks. You can reach out and touch them if you wanted to, they are that close to you. It was really fun to be able to be so close to something, with no glass or walls between you, that is so different and unusual. Penguins are something I'll never see in the wild, as I doubt I'll make it to Antarctica! I could have stayed in there for hours and just watched them.

As we started to leave, the kids saw a penny maker, one of those souvenir things that squishes a penny with a logo of the place you are visiting on it. We let them all get one, then found these penny books, which hold something like 36 pennies! Instantly the search for penny machines would become a focal point of the trip. They slipped their pennies into the books, and we slipped back in the car for the 4 hour drive across Missouri to Kansas City.

We had a wonderful time in St. Louis, that's for certain. We all the love the beach, and even though St. Louis is far far away from one, I think everyone left thinking this would be a fun place to come back and visit. I couldn't believe how much we got done in only 36 hours, but we loved every minute of it!