We usually get a few random warm days in February so when I saw that the weather was going to be in the 60’s, Madeline and I headed to the zoo on one of her days off from school. She was so excited to see all of the animals. She talked constantly about the giraffes and how she wanted to feed them. The giraffe exhibit is the first thing you do when you go to the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo. I paid for 2 giraffe feedings and when I went to hand over the lettuce to Madeline, she wanted nothing to do with feeding the giraffes. I think their dominance in height sort of frightened her, so I fed the giraffes instead. She eventually warmed up to the giraffes and was talking to them from a distance as we made our way around that exhibit. Then we headed towards the elephants and found a few roaming around outside. It wasn’t long after we got there that Madeline was already keen on leaving so that she could go and see the snakes and birds. We walked to the Australia Walkabout section and saw the red necked wallaby’s, the alligator basking in the sun, the tree kangaroo, and the many snakes and lizards. From there we saw a black bear, tiger, seals and baby moose before heading into a new section of the zoo called Water’s Edge: Africa. In this new section we saw African penguins roaming around outside, the Nile hippopotamus roaming in the waters, and some warthogs. Then we walked into the primate world where we saw the gorillas, orangutans, and siamang monkeys. The gorillas were massive and interesting to watch as they were either picking at their nails or regurgitating their food and then eating it. The most interesting animal in this section was definitely the baby siamang monkey. That baby monkey was so tiny, yet so full of energy. We stayed and watched as it tried to swing from rope to rope. It was quite marvelous to watch. As we left the Primate World, we headed down to the Skyline ride and took the chairlift all the way to the Mountaineer Summit. Most of the exhibits at the top were closed so we decided to get back on the lift and head back down to the bottom. We stopped at the gift shop on the way out of the zoo where Madeline decided on a baby giraffe figurine. It was such a fun day at the zoo with Madeline.
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