Our Trip to the Zoo

I was hit with a brilliant idea last week while trying to find a new addition to our list of possible weekend adventures. I suddenly remembered that there is a small zoo at a city park in Greenville. I emailed Darcey the link to the zoo's homepage and she was so excited by the idea that she didn't even look into it. The answer was a simple "yes."

There is a similar sized zoo in Fresno and I probably visited it four or five times in the two years I lived there. Most of those times were with Darcey and we enjoyed strolling through the exhibits on slow weekend days. The last time we were at a zoo Darcey was pregnant with Leah. It was more than two years ago when we visited the Riverbanks Zoo in Columbia. It must have been in the middle of June because it was in the upper 80s when we arrived at around 9 a.m. and pushing 100 when we left at noon.

Yesterday was a perfect summer day for the zoo as thick layers of clouds kept the area a bit cooler than an usual day in early August. We told Leah on the way out the door that we were going to see elephants and she just repeated that word over and over on the drive to Greenville. Well not that word exactly, but her version of it which sounds like "Elliots." The giant animals are just inside the gate and as we turned the corner and they came into sight, Leah's mouth dropped wide open. She waved and said hi to them and then noticed the monkeys in a pen further down the walk. Off we went.

I was really surprised at how nice the little zoo is. There are a lot of animals to see ranging from giant snapping turtles to a pair of magnificent lions. Leah especially enjoyed those but also made a point to look in every display in the reptile building and spent several minutes studying a toucan.

Darcey and I just ended up following her as she did the toddler trot from exhibit to exhibit. We had as much fun watching her as she had watching the giraffes. It made me think of those afternoons at the Fresno Zoo and how long ago that was. We barely knew who we were and we had no idea who we would become.

And we had no idea that anyone else would enjoy those kinds of days as much as we do.

-Sefton