The Zoo closes at 4:30

Know how I know that? Take a guess. Go on. I'll wait.

So our anniversary was this weekend. Hubby and I had originally planned to go to Camp for the weekend, but he came down with a sinus infection on Wednesday, then threw his back out on Thursday. This was all really fun. For both of us. Let's just say that Manly Man there doesn't make the best patient. In fact, he kind of turns into a five year-old.

So anyway, between hubby being a mess, and the cat still needing antibiotics, we decided to stay home for the weekend and do some fun stuff around here. I had Friday off of work already, so we slept late, and went to the zoo in the afternoon. It was actually a lot of fun. All the pics are on the other computer, so I will try and amend this post later.

The Luzon Bleeding-Heart Pigeons ran across my path.

I got to watch the penguins for a while.

We saw the lions (sleepy) and the wolves (antsy) and the naked mole-rat (weird).

We also got to see the snow leopard (who acted a lot like Knitty Kitty) and the Amur Tiger who lay in his pool in front of us for a while. This was about 4:30.

Now, we heard something from the speakers at this point, but they were so far away, that we couldn't tell what they were saying, so we figured that it wasn't that important. So we spent the next hour looking at the rest of the animals on the Wildlife Trail. By the time we got to the elephant exhibit, we noticed that it was very, very quiet. Then we noticed that all of the umbrellas on the patio table were closed. Then we noticed that all of the doors to the main building (and the exit) were locked. Huh.

What time does the zoo close again?

We finally found one door, between the Social Animals and Adaptations to enter. We navigated back through the Diversity of Birds and past the U.S.S. Antiquities. Finally, the exit!

Now, keep in mind, this entire time I'm looking for the hours of the zoo posted anywhere, including the map I've been carrying around for the last four hours. We get outside and find two employees watering the gardens in front of the building.

Gardener 1 says to us, "Oh, I'm sorry, but the zoo closed an hour ago!"
Me: "That's good to know, because we've been in there since 1:30."
Gardener 2: "They were doing a sweep. They didn't find you?"
Me: "No. No, we weren't even hard to find. Right on the main trail."
Gardener 1: "Oh, well, the zoo closes at 4:30."
Me: "Yes, we noticed. But I was looking for a sign somewhere, including the entrance that gives the zoo's hours."
Gardener 2: "There's no sign? Didn't you hear the announcement.?"
Me: "No, there's no sign. Feel free to check it out. And no, we didn't hear the announcement. We were over by the Tiger at 4:30."
Gardener 1: "Oh, well you can't hear the announcement over there. The local residents don't like it."

Why am I having this conversation?

Hubby was making noise about busting out of the zoo by jumping a fence. My thought: this is a zoo. Don't you think maybe you should know what's on the other side of the fence before you start climbing them? Didn't you see Jurassic Park?

Now, today's fun. I got this email from Dad yesterday:

Subject: M3 Issue

Hi-

I have to warn you about something I learned this weekend: if you put a cup in the cup holder, it does not rest on the bottom. There is some space under there, so if you put a cup of, say Super Peachy smoothie in the cup holder and then accidentally hit the straw with your elbow, it is capable of punching a quarter-sized hole in the bottom of the cup. What will happen then is that the cup holder will fill up with smoothie, until with your eyes firmly fixed on the road you reach down and pick up the cup. The viscosity of a smoothie will assure that as you raise the straw to your mouth a giant glooble of smoothie will be deposited on the console, your leg, stomach and chest. You will not realize this until the sensation of cold and wet penetrates your clothing. At this point, do not reach down with your right hand and scrape the smoothie off your shirt and fling it out the window shrieking curses. You will certainly need that hand to shift gears fairly soon, and it will be hard to find a clean spot on your shirt to wipe your hand. Just in case this ever happens to you, make sure you have a small ladle in your kitchen for emptying the cup holder as you begin the two hour cleaning process.

Dad