Kiss My Knits!

This past Saturday, the hubby and daughter and I went to the N.C. Zoo. Our daughter had asked to go on Thursday, and we said “Sure!” because it sounded like fun, and it’s so unusual for her to just out of the blue request something like that. Then we checked the weather forecast and learned it was only going to get up to 87, which was actually much lower than the rest of the week. We breathed a sigh of relief. Then we learned she wanted not only to see the animals, but to take one home. Preferably a kangaroo. So we explained to her we could get a stuffed animal, but not take a real one home, and she was okay with that. Another sigh of relief.

We got out of the house by 8:30, which is pretty good for us. And sure enough, on Saturday it was cloudy, and even rained a little as we drove up. Emily was good the entire two hour drive, and when we arrived, the rain had stopped but it was still overcast. Perfect!


Currently, the NC Zoo has an Australia exhibit, which leaves next year when they bring the petting zoo back. Kangaroos were the one thing Emily wanted to see, so we saw them early. Kangaroos bounce! And they have joeys in their pouches! And they eat grass! Or so we were told by Emily. However, it was a hot day and the kangaroos were bored, so what we really saw is to the right. Four lackadaisical kangaroos lying under a shelter. I think they may have been gossiping, probably about how uncivilized it was for us Americans to be having summer in the middle of July. Interestingly, there wasn’t a big fence around the kangaroos, there was a low rope like you’d see at the edge of a garden path. There was, however, one bored-looking guy on a stool there, I assume to make sure neither we nor the ‘roos flipped out and made a run for each other.



Later, in the Australian exhibit, Emily found some giant crocodiles hatching and greeted them as they emerged from the egg in order to impress upon them as their mother. She’s always looking for new monsters for her evil army. A smart girl, Emily knows it’s never too early to start planning to take over the world.


From Australia back to North America. We arrived at the seal and sea lion tank two minutes before feeding time. There was a bit of a press, so I retreated to let the hubby take care of Emily while they watched them get fed. They got to see a few minor tricks as the keepers fed them fish. I didn’t take this picture, but I’ll assume that they were being sure the animals were all healthy as well.

The seals and sea lions are part of the ‘Rocky Coast’ portion of the exhibit, complete with polar bears, and also some puffins and other wintry aquatic birds. They’re kept separate from the polar bears of course, since those bears will eat anything. The exhibit is neat because they have an area underneath the paths where you can walk and view the animals swimming underwater. Fun!



They’ve got a nice playground next to a snack area, set up like a giant garden. There are giant vegetables, spiderwebs made of rope to climb, and thick “vines” to crawl on and through. Emily had fun there. Mostly likely she was thinking about shrink rays. She’s a really “type A” about that whole “take over the world” mission.


The sun came out just before she hit the playground, and things started to heat up. Just after the playground, we started to hear a lot of “what’s the last animal we’re going to look at?” Just after we took the tram to Africa, we started hearing “I want to go home.” I don’t blame her, there was a lot of walking, but we decided that we would stay and see the animals that Daddy really wanted to see. We thought it would be a good lesson in compromise. It quickly became a good lesson in sweating.

We saw the monkeys, and started to make our way back. We probably stayed a little longer than we should have, considering the heat. We didn’t see the giraffes, zebras, lions, or some other African animals. We did see chimps, gorillas, and varioius types of monkeys, which are the hubby’s favorite. You can’t see them clearly, but there are Patas monkeys in the exhibit they’re viewing. It was kind of a drive-by viewing, as we were all feeling ready to get out of the heat. We’ve decided that next time, we’ll go to the African side first (the Zoo has two entrances, one for Africa and one for North America) so that we can see what we’ve missed. And we’ll be sure to go when it’s not in the 90’s, as it turned out to be.


We bought a stuffed leopard (odd, there are no leopards in the zoo) and some cotton candy on the way out. I packed a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in a cooler in the car, and to induce her to eat it after having had ice cream and cookies while in the zoo, we told her she’d have to eat the sandwich before the cotton candy. So she did. That kid was loaded up with junk food. But hey, how often do we get to the zoo?

She slept great that night. And in fact, she was kind of slow the next day, too, and slept great the following night. Obviously, we all had a big, fine time at the zoo.

On the way home, we stopped for gas outside of Charlotte and I got a soda (unusual for me). They had some kind of mystery soda I’d never seen before, which the attendant said was very popular with their Mexican customers. It’s Jarritos, which wikipedia says is the “most popular soft drink in the U.S. among Hispanic consumers”. I just saw it and figured “what the heck” and tried it. It was different, I’m not sure if that’s good or bad. No artificial flavors at all, less carbonation, and sugar instead of the U.S. standard corn syrup. I think I liked it. I’m still not sure.

Anyone else tried this? Am I just behind the times?

The thing that amuses me most about this drink is that on their ingredient list, they broke carbonated water down into “water, carbon dioxide.” Heh.



Koigu socks proceed apace, having gotten much car-time knitting on the zoo trip. This picture is out of date now, as I put another inch on them at the S&B last night and am ready to bind them off. Yay!

I leave you with one final pic for . Technically they’re tortoises, but close enough. Plus they were in an exhibit with the dik-dik. Heh. Dik-dik. heh heh.