Minnesota Zoo

The kids are on spring break this week, so I took a personal day so they could do something fun besides going to daycare (or in Kieran's case, stay at home playing playstation).  Two of the three wanted to go to the zoo and weather forecast looked like today would be the best day of the next four or five days, so we went to the zoo....

About that weather forecast...the 30% chance of rain turned into steady rain until almost 1:15 (we got to the zoo at 9:40 and it was not raining when we left Cologne).  The picture above?  That was the most sun we saw and it was as we were leaving...

Rain or no rain, there's still plenty to do at the zoo.  Like take a look at the Hawaiian Monk Seals...

There are five of them at the zoo, but only one was out in the main tank.  We learned later they prefer to be on their own...

Weather forecast said 50 degrees, but when it was raining, it was well below that....so we headed for the tropics!  At least the tropic trail where Luke & Lex found the Komodo Dragon just hanging out...

Kieran preferred to be at a little bit of a distance from his siblings, but still likes the dragon...

Although, I'm pretty sure the dragon would prefer all of us were gone...

Along the tropic trail, we watched a very active gibbon/lemur/monkey (the kids would correct me) for a long time...Luke said he was just trying to show off....

Lex wanted a picture of the Flamingos...so we got a picture of a Flamingo...

On the Minnesota Trail, I don't ever remember being this close to the Mountain Lions or Cougars or Pumas (whatever you'd like to call them), they weren't active, just trying to avoid the rain...

Kieran's favorite animal at the zoo is the Penguins from South Africa, I just wasn't able to get a good picture of Kieran and a penguin.  So here's Lex and an adult...

At that point, it was go home or go outside....rain or no rain....there was a vote to go home, but we went outside (it wasn't a heavy rain at that point)...

On the Russian Coast trail section we found the leopard hanging close to the glass....apparently cats don't like the water...

The tiger was different though...it was out pacing and growling (that may have been because of the rain)..

The Takins didn't care one bit about water falling from the sky...

The Wild Horses from China thought it was the best time - the kids thought they were playing tag...

I'm not too sure what the camels thought about it though...

We went back to the Brown Bears before we left because the sun was coming out.  The bears were enjoying lounging in the sun and I liked this picture...

As we walked out I took this picture (I do like pictures of people in front of signs) and it looks like the weather was fantastic.  It wasn't, but the kids had fun...