Anna & Maddie Visit the Zoo

All last week we read Curious George Visits the Zoo in anticipation of taking our own trip to the North Carolina Zoo. The rains stopped and on Saturday we loaded the girls up and took off to Asheboro. We arrived around 10:30 (an hour and a half after it opened) and were able to park within the first two rows of the parking lot on the Africa side. We decided our BOB stroller would be the best way to take the girls around the zoo and that proved correct. The BOB easily navigated through the narrow aisles of the African Pavilion and its canopy provided lots of shade for the girls.



Within 10 minutes of parking we made it to the front gates, bought our ticket and were off to the first exhibit. I was definitely expecting more of a crowd (I guess the zoo isn't exactly Disney). With only a few people around, we were able to easily push Anna up to the glass at the exhibits - which was a good thing since it took us awhile to convince Anna that it was ok to get out of the stroller. Zebras, ostriches, lions, monkeys... we were zooming around the park and then we found them... the baboons.



These cute little monkeys with red behinds made Anna laugh as they scurried about. Another hit with Anna was the meerkat.



Rhinos, elephants, birds... we saw them all (though no sign of the giraffes) and were having a great time, but there were two things that were not a hit for Anna. One was a huge rhino statue and the other was the carousel. The zoo carousel of course had statues of a variety of zoo animals that the kids could ride on but they all looked fierce. Anna was terrified to touch the animals and so we held her. At one point though she accidentally touched the zebra behind us and broke down in tears. We may have to try another carousel to see if she does any better.

Around 1:30, after seeing all of Africa and having lunch, we decided it was time to go home and save the other half of the zoo (North American animals) for another day. It was a great family trip!