We had visitors, including two children, last week. We decided to take them to the zoo. Many years had gone by since we’d last been to the zoo so it seemed like a fun thing to do.

Unfortunately we’d failed to take into account that it was the Easter holidays, schools were out and it seemed like everyone was visiting the zoo. Our trip to the zoo, which should have taken less than an hour ended up taking about two hours and the zoo itself was…well…a zoo. So many people.

Still we enjoyed it and the kids in particular seemed to have a good time. By the time we’d had some lunch we only had about three hours before the zoo closed so we didn’t see everything that we wanted to see. I think you’d really need at least a day for that.

Above the Zoo Center described by Wikipedia as:

…built in 1908, is a one-story Beaux-Arts building located in Astor Court. The exhibit houses blue tree monitors, Mertens’ water monitors, and western spiny-tailed monitors (Varanus acanthurus brachyurus) indoors, and has both indoor and outdoor enclosures for Komodo dragons, Aldabra giant tortoises, and southern white rhinoceros. The building’s animal frieze was carved by A.P. Proctor. In 2000, the building was landmarked. The building is east of the Children’s Zoo and south of Madagascar!.

The building was originally designed as the zoo’s Elephant House and has held all three elephant species over its history. The building has also been home to various rhinoceros species, hippopotamus, domestic bactrian camel, Malayan tapir, and North Sulawesi babirusa. The building also held Rapunzel, one of the few Sumatran rhinos held in U.S. zoos, until her death in 2005.

Taken with a Sony RX-100 M3.