Fun at the Zoo - Woodland Park Zoo - Part 1

Saturday was supposed to rain...at least 60% chance. When we left the house it was partly cloudy and beautiful. Headed to the zoo and got there around 10:30 am.

The Woodland Park Zoo is pricey if you're just visiting one time and don't already have a membership. It cost us $17.75 per person (two adults). Ouch. Thankfully Marshal isn't 3 yet so he's still free but once that clock flips he'll cost $11.50! For a three year old. Sheesh.

If we became annual members it would cost us $42 a piece ($84 for the year for two of us) and once Marshal was 3 he'd cost $11 for an annual pass. The zoo is about an hour away from our house. Marshal had a blast but I don't know how many times we'll go in a year. We may wait a little while and if we make it up to Seattle again in the next month or two we may consider becoming members. It definitely is worth it if we plan on going more than three times a year. And for Marshal we may as well sign him up for an annual membership since it's actually cheaper than the one day fee.

When we entered the gate we saw Penguins and they were so cool. Marshal loved watching them swim and see them under the water.

We went through the Tropical Rainforest and it was beautiful. We saw Jaguars and several other species that were so neat. I loved the Jaguars. We got up so close that Marshal got scared when one cat got too close to the window.

This third jaguar was sitting on this log a ways away from the windows. There were two others right up against the glass.

We stopped for lunch and I had to laugh.  Our hot dogs and fries were served on very pretty acrylic plates. Real plates, not paper or baskets. It was pretty snazzy and probably why it cost us $17 for two hot dogs, fries, a soda, and a chocolate milk. Ouch. And no straws! I hate drinking my liquids without a straw but they had signs up everywhere saying they did not offer straws or lids for the protection of the animals. Oh well.

As soon as we were done with lunch and ready to head back outside it started POURING down rain. Not just sprinkling like it does so often here in Washington...it was dumping buckets! We hemmed and hawed and finally decided to go for it...we ran to the Zoo store hoping to find umbrellas or something. Thankfully we got there and they weren't sold out.

Marshal was actually pretty excited to wear a poncho...at first. It got old though.

The great thing about toughing it out in the rain...way fewer crowds. We got to feed elephants and hardly waited at all. Of course we ended up getting soaked, but we survived and after about an hour of monsoon weather it cleared up for us.

This post would be ten pages long if I included everything so I'll do it in a couple parts...this concludes Part 1. Read part 2 here.