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Playing Hooky

Tuesday, 18 November 2008, 18:16 | Category : Meatspace Life
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Now that the paid time off I’ve been earning has finally caught up with the deficit from the honeymoon, I decided to cash a bit in for today.  I’d been keeping an eye on the weather, and since today promised to be perfect it seemed like a good day to go to the zoo.

I’ve been to the Denver Zoo a few times, and while I certainly love it, the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo in Colorado Springs is my new favorite place on earth.

Why?  If for no other reason than this:

You can feed and pet the giraffes.

I love giraffes.  I think they are so beautiful, so completely alien…and at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo, you can buy giraffe crackers and feed the giraffes.  It is, bar none, the coolest thing ever.  They can smell the crackers, and when you walk up the come scurrying over, prehensile black tongues eagerly quivering from their lips, looking at you with those huge, long-lashed eyes.  I cannot tell you how amazing this experience is.

There are a lot of other awesome animals there too.  There’s Okapi:

The most playful and active elephants I’ve ever seen:

Huge, regal mountain lions:

Bear ‘tocks:

And many other wonderful animals, not to mention a view that can’t be beat:

I’ve always said a lot of nasty thing about Colorado Springs in the past – it’s a conservative stronghold and home to some of the biggest megachurches in the world, and many of the people I’ve met from Colorado Springs (with a few notable exceptions) are unmitigated assholes.  But the zoo…oh, the zoo!

9 Comments for “Playing Hooky”

  1. 1Chris

    wrote on 18 November 2008 at 19:50

    Are okapi and giraffes as velvety as they look??

  2. 2Sydney

    wrote on 18 November 2008 at 20:06

    Laughing at the bear ‘tocks! Feeding the giraffes looks like lots of fun. I’ve never been that close to one. And the Okapi has the sweetest face. Looks like a good day.

  3. 3naomi

    wrote on 18 November 2008 at 21:26

    That sounds like an excellent day off, indeed. Thanks for sharing pictures!

  4. 4Anne

    wrote on 19 November 2008 at 5:05

    I don’t think that zoo existed the 1 year we lived in Co. Springs. I do remember the Denver Zoo, however!

    The bear buttocks – heh – Does this wall make my butt look big?

  5. 5Carrie

    wrote on 19 November 2008 at 6:29

    Bear tocks! Those are the best.

  6. 6taelixev

    wrote on 19 November 2008 at 7:49

    I take the kids there in the summer. They like it there a lot. You can pet the wallabys and feed the budgies.

  7. 7Andi

    wrote on 19 November 2008 at 9:25

    If we ever meet IRL, keep the conversation to knitting ;-) (I’m a USAFA grad…lots of good and bad memories of C Springs!) The zoo has a giraffe cam, which makes me very happy when the high school kids start jumping on my last nerve.

  8. 8taelixev

    wrote on 19 November 2008 at 14:22

    I think I can live through this…(I’m lame, I’m responding to your comment with a comment.) I’m sure that the itchy, watery, feeling isn’t due to allergies. I’m sure it’s something else. I didn’t know silk shed so much? Are you like me, trying to catch the little fibers that get stuck to your fingers and spin them into the fiber? Silk kittehz…lol, I’m sure spinners with cats have the most expensive hairballs.

  9. 9Carrie K

    wrote on 19 November 2008 at 18:04

    Some zoos are fabulous. Some are scary. That looks like one of the good ones.