Tuesday 17 June, 2003 at 2:36PM (Nereus)  ::  permalink  ::  comments (1)

The Bronx Zoo ..and I'm not just talking about the borough of Bronx in general. We finally made it to the Bronx Zoo last Sunday, which just happened to be the first fine weekend in about 8 weeks as far as the weather goes, and it was also Fathers Day. We were obviously not the only ones who thought the zoo would be a good place to visit on this day, far from it in fact.

IceQueen and I went with her parents, the Cat and the Lemur. A two hour trip via the subway found us at the zoo in the early afternoon (NYC is a big place). There was a queue at the entrance, and it was rather long. It was in the open under the hot sun so it was fortunate that the weather wasn't too hot, although it was hot enough to give IceQueen a light sunburn. About an hour or so later we actually got inside the zoo, so to speak.

Wow the place was packed. Even after being in NYC as long as I have now, the sheer amount of people continues to have me shaking my head in amazement. We didn't have enough time to see half of the residents, although we did make it into the Congo Gorilla Forest which was groovy. The gorillas are big silverbacks - one male, a bunch of females and quite a few cute little youngsters rolling around. They've got a pretty good setup there for the gorillas with a good amount of space and privacy if that's what they want. One of the females was a bit of an exhibitionist though, standing up a few feet in front of everyone and posing several times, even doing profile shots. Kinda funny. The male was sitting a little way away around the corner just watching, you could plainly see the intelligence in his eyes. He looked incredibly strong - I wouldn't want to be on the receiving end if he was pissed about something.

We checked out the Kodiak and Grizzly bears, formidible beasts in their own right, although the polar bears at the Central Park zoo appear to be a lot bigger. We had lunch at a cafe inside the zoo and spent a fair amount of time walking from one enclosure to the next. Strangely enough, we probably spent a substantial part of our time there watching the squirrels and chipmunks that aren't actually part of the zoo but just run around wild picking up scraps of food people leave behind. They're cute in their own squirrelly chipmunkish way.

We eventually headed back home pretty tired from the walking combined with the heat. As far as first impressions go, the Bronx Zoo didn't really do a lot for me as far as what my expectations were, but I think that's only because of the crowds. Next time we'll go on a week day when it's not so busy.

It was a pretty good weekend altogether despite the crowds, things are so much better when you're enjoying them with a weasel *grin*. Not much else to tell right now. The water is off for the day at our apartment while they do some maintenance on the pipes ..exciting.