The North Carolina Zoological Park

While Nate was on Fall Break, we decided to do a little early celebrating for Morgan's birthday and take her to the zoo which is about 2.5 hours away, in Asheboro, NC.  I had been to this zoo when I was a little-itty-bitty kid (can't believe right now that I was ever little) but couldn't remember it at all.  This zoo was amazing, maybe not San Diego, but beautiful, and earns its name of Zoological Park.  

The park was divided into two continents, Africa and North America.  I was impressed with the job they have done on creating habitats that seem native.  Instead of seeing animals in cages, you walk along a path and over the fence or down the hill or on the other side of some rocks you see the animals.  

We bought the combo pass for the day which included a Dinosaur 4-D show (which neither Morgan nor I went to), a Dinosaur exhibit with lifesize animatronic dinosaurs, the giraffe deck, and the carousel.  We were in for a treat!

First we tried the dinosaur exhibit.  Morgan liked seeing the dinosaurs, but when they moved and started making noise it was just a little too much.  Both Nate and I thought it was really cool, and I"m not even all that into dinosaurs.  They were out in the woods and you walked along a gravel path.

 You can see how large they are compared to the trees!

Morgan likes pretty much anything with tires and a steering wheel.

Next we went to the giraffe deck, which turned out to be my favorite part of the day.  I thought we would just get to walk up on a deck with a better view of the giraffes, but there was actually a zookeeper there with a bag of leaves.  Some of the giraffes would come right over to the deck, and we got to feed them.  Morgan didn't think much of this at first, but after she saw Mom do it a few times, she tried too, and then couldn't get enough of it.  We were there for a while feeding the giraffes.

 Pretty excited that the leaf isn't in her hand anymore!

 Had to go back for more!

We had a lot of fun the rest of the day, but this was really the highlight.  Morgan rode the carousel 3 times, skipped nap time, and totally zonked out as soon as we got in the car that evening.  Here are some more highlights from the day.

 The only creature bigger than me right now!

 Trees, trees, trees everywhere!  If I had to live in a zoo I might choose this one

 Too cool

 The lion queen - this reminded us a lot of the Stone Table in the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.  She actually rolled over while we watched her sleep, then stared at us, and walked away.

Kitty "mow" as Morgan says

Oh, one more thing that we didn't get pictures of.  A baby gorilla was born in August, and we actually saw the mom nursing her baby.  It was a really cool experience for me to see nature work that easily.  And also to see other people appreciate it.  I think it's "taboo" for women to breatfeed, and there's a lot of controversy over nursing in public, but for this animal, it was just life, and people oohed and aahed.  If it's important for a baby gorilla, isn't it important for little human babies as well?  Just saying!