Jane's First Zoo

We had a bit of an unplanned adventure on our trip to Sacramento on Saturday. Bank of America has the first weekend of every month featuring several museums around the country for free with your card. I wanted to go to the Discovery Science Museum in Sacramento and so we made the two hour drive there on Saturday.

Jane was great in the car for the two hours but when we got to the museum, we found an hour and a half line to get in. It turns out that Sat. Feb 4th was Sacramento's FREE museum day and so everyone had the same idea as us. There was no way that we were going to wait in that line but we found out that the Sacramento Zoo was offering half priced admissions that day so we headed there so that our two hour drive would not be in vain.

We discovered that Jane has about a maximum tolerance of the car at 2 hours because when we put her back in the car to drive the 15 minutes to the zoo, she cried the entire time. There was a line at the zoo too but fortunately, the cash only line was just 10 minutes long. The weather has been INCREDIBLE here for February- it was about 70 degrees on Saturday which made it a perfect day for the zoo.
Jane's not quite sure what this experience will be like
William was a trooper and carried Jane in the Snugli for the visit so that way we could not have to worry about the stroller, which was a good call given the crowds.
The Sacramento Zoo is not very big so it only took us over an hour to see the entire zoo and so we were glad that it was only half price admission. It was money well spent as many of the animals were very active for us.

We were able to get up close and personal with the giraffes.
You could buy some leaves to feed the giraffe but we opted for watching others, which was entertaining. Giraffe's have a LONG tongue, as evidenced below, and so it was amusing to watch these little kids try to feed them. This brother and sister would just throw the leaves at the giraffe or would place them on the ground near the giraffe rather than directly giving it to the giraffe. Even when the mom demonstrated by feeding the leaves, the kids still just threw the leaves.
We saw the adorable Chinese red panda
The tiger was awake and actually let out a couple of roars while walking around, one time just a few feet away from us. Of course I wasn't ready with the camera until after he passed. I had never heard a tiger roar- it actually sounds similar to what you hear in the movies, though not quite as perfect :-)
And then we saw one of the most AMAZING sites I have ever seen at a zoo. BOTH the dad and mom lions were AWAKE!! I have never seen both of them awake before, as they sleep nearly 20 hours a day, and then to have them so perfectly posed, was priceless.
Jane was fascinated by them as well
We later came back and the dad was still awake, but the mom had gone to sleep so we really did luck out with our timing. It was a fun outing even though it was not what we had set out to do.

We then went to Chick-fil-a since we were in Sacramento and enjoyed that deliciousness while Jane snoozed. She woke up at the end and then had a melt down in the parking lot as we changed her diaper and put her back in the car seat. I was relieved that it happened outside the restaurant as she was really exercising her lungs. After a few minutes of crying, she did manage to fall asleep for most of the ride home, only fussing at the very end. This trip made us realize that while Jane does like the car, she will only tolerate it for so long, meaning that there will be no longer than two hour road trips in the near future.