A Visit to The Dallas Zoo

This past Friday we went to The Dallas Zoo as a family and with Nonnie, who was able to meet us there. This was my first time to the Dallas Zoo in a long, long time. In fact, I really had no memory of it at all...that was how long it had been. We went to the Ft. Worth Zoo about a year and a half ago and it was great. The Dallas Zoo is always billed as a step down from the Ft. Worth Zoo, but I was happy to find out that I liked it just as much, if not more. It definitely has the better location for us, which is a big deal when you're carting around kids and would rather spend more of your time actually at the zoo rather than in the car. I could list the other things I liked about it, but I'll let the photos do the talking (along with a little commentary, of course!).

We made the carousel our first stop because it's right by the entrance. Ethan specifically chose that animal to ride, so Logan got the ostrich by default. They both just giggled and squealed the whole time.  You can't see Logan's face, but he was thrilled.

We got to the zoo right when it opened so it wasn't very crowded (yet), and the weather was perfect.

One of the things I liked about the Dallas Zoo is that we got so many up-close (very close) encounters with the animals. Ethan is face to face with that penguin and he thought that was so awesome!

I thought all the statues of the animals around the zoo were pretty cool. But Logan wouldn't go near them! He did not know what to think of those things.

Here's another close encounter. That chimp came right up to the glass to collect a piece of food.

The rocks throughout the zoo are just begging to be climbed. Ethan definitely burned some energy when we first got there running from animal to animal and climbing on things. Then he burned out later on and got to ride in the stroller...good thing we brought the double.

I love, love, love this photo of Ethan and Casey. I'm framing it for sure.

This little one was so cute and so interested in the animals one minute, and then tired, teething, and fussy the next minute. But he really did great. I think he liked the zoo! This was pretty much his first time since he was only 3.5 months old the last time we went.

The monorail (despite the wait to get on) was really fun. It gave us a chance to sit down and still see some animals at the same time. Plus, anything that moves and resembles a train is a hit with my boys. They loved it.

This photo of me and Logan was taken on the large observation deck in the Giants of the Savanna part of the zoo, which I loved. The deck is huge, open, and you can see several animals right there. The elephants, ostriches, impala, giraffe, and others are here. Having been to Africa, I can say that this truly reminded me of one of the safari camps we visited. It's one of the newer parts of the zoo, and I think they've done a great job with it.

I thought this safari vehicle was so cool...one side is in front of the glass where kids can pretend to drive, and the other half is behind the glass where the cheetahs live. And they are not shy about jumping in the back of the truck, apparently! This was another close encounter...and it was really cool for the boys to see a big cat up close like that.

Then, around the corner, they got to see some other big cats up close...the lions. They were all napping in one area right by the glass. 

We had to head home (because the boys were worn out!) before we got to spend any significant time at the Childrens' Zoo, which looked so fun. But next time we will definitely make time for that! We also ran into my friend, Mary, and her family while we were there. We made an erroneous loop back around the gorilla trail, but if we hadn't, we would not have run into them there!