Day 21 - When was the last time I went to the Denver Zoo?

When was the last time you went to a zoo? When Mom and Uncle David visited me in Burkina in 2011 we went to the "Presidential Zoo" where he kept all the animals he'd had imported from around the continent. It was a little sad to see some of the animals in fairly small simple enclosures, but it was also pretty cool getting to scratch a hyena and pet an elephant, Uncle David even fed an enormous hippo! Before that I visited the Lupa Zoo in Ludlow, MA when I was in college. Before that I just don't remember - it must have been at least 10 years ago.

So needless to say, I was really excited when Jessie suggested we take the kids to go check it out! When you're accompanying a pair of two year-olds you don't spend much time in any one place, but we did manage a pretty good tour of the "zoo greatest hits" - we saw the baby snow leopard (!), tigers, zebras, polar bears, giraffes, elephants, sea lions, a few monkeys, quite a number of fish and snakes, and the komodo dragon. They were more interested on going on the carousal and the train than they were in the animals (I mean, they are 2, and admittedly I was glad they insisted because I enjoyed both!).

We were all tired and hungry by the time we got off the train ride, so we hustled the kids out of there and picked up an amazing (and filling) lunch at Watercourse Foods - a trendy hipster vegetarian restaurant with some delicious ideas and combinations. I'd been well exposed to tofu applications in college and enjoyed my blackened cajun tofu cesar wrap, but I also got to try seitan, in the form of seitan buffalo "wings". The texture was decidedly not chicken-like, but I suspect it would have been perfect shaved on the "ruben" sandwich, and the flavoring was spot on. The tomato curry bisque was also a highlight, and the staff was very friendly even in the face of threatening pre-nap time meltdowns.

I've realized that I'm talking about all these people that I'm staying with and haven't always said how I know them! Jessie and I grew up across the street from each other - I'm the same age as her younger sister Theresa, so I was "Little Jessie" and she was "Big Jessie". Now that we've both reached our adult heights, the irony of the 6 inch difference is not lost on us, but we stick with the names none the less. We had all lost touch by the time we were in our early-teens, but Jessie and I reconnected on Facebook a few years ago and have been staying in better touch since then. I had the pleasure of staying with Jessie, her daughter, and her mother for a few nights, and got to spend some time catching up with Theresa, her awesome boyfriend, and her two sons, and even some of their extended family that I haven't seen since we were all very young. It was an amazing experience for so many reasons which I hope to write more about later. Now that I've promised the kids lots of pictures so they can adventure with me: here are the photos!

 Baby snow leopard!

 The hyenas kindly decided to nap right up against the window for easy viewing

 I don't remember seeing Maned Wolves before, they look like very large foxes

 Giraffes

 They're really big!

 Hugging Klondike and Snow, the two polar bear cubs that were born when I was a kid

Splashing in the puddles was a favorite activity as we walked around

 River otter

Huge anaconda

 Glub glub

 African Green Mamba - it's so pretty for being dangerous

 Looking at the Komodo Dragon

 Head

 Perspective makes all the difference!

(photo by Jessie) I really love this one, I think I was talking to them about his "fingernails"

 This one was a crocodile but I still can't tell the difference between that and an alligator without Google's help

 Sea lions

 A young elephant in the new (very fancy) elephant pavillion

 Jessie and Dono on the carousal

(photo by Jessie) Me and the kids! I had a blast playing auntie, and I smiled every time I did or said something I know my mother would have said exactly that same way