A Visit to Grandma Martha: Stop 3 - The Great Plains Zoo and Delbridge Museum of Natural History

We went to the zoo in Sioux Falls on Saturday morning. It was pretty neat. The front part had lots of exhibits that are similar to other zoos.






The rhino part was really neat. It was in a part of the zoo designed to mimic Africa. This is the Daddy rhino.


These are the Mama and the baby rhinos.



The next part of Africa was the giraffe and the zebra area. It was really cool.





The funny little bird below had just had babies and would make a loud sound when the giraffes came too close. The giraffes would take off running!


We ran into our cousins around the barnyard area. Ainsley tried to help Maisey and Emmitt milk a cow.


Dad captured two critters hatching out of giant eggs.



After seeing the zoo, we went inside to the Delbridge Museum. Essentially, it was a collection of stuffed and mounted animals from a local area hunter's collection. They also had a cute little play area for Ainsley.




Love,
Ainsley, Ben and Cameron

Long Lost Zoo Fieldtrip Pictures

Mom accompanied my class on a field trip to the zoo, just before school got out, but Dad never moved the pictures from the camera to the computer. Anyhow, here is my fieldtrip. We were paired up with my friend, Andrew.







Love,
Cameron

Spring Break 2010: The Stay-cation / Part 2: The Zoo

The Minnesota Zoo is a long, long way from our house, so we had never been (except for Ben on a field trip once). Today, we changed that.

It looks like we went up north on a trip so the Maritz Family lodge, but really this was the start of the Minnesota Trail, which highlights animals and habitats from Minnesota.


We think Dad was suggesting that Ben is a gray wolf and Cameron is a coyote here.


Ainsley eyed the gray wolf sculpture with some skepticism.


Ben's wingspan is slightly smaller than a bald eagle.


Cameron's is slightly bigger than a swallow.


After the Minnesota Trail, we went on the tropical trail.

We also got to pet an African millipede.


We saw some marine animals inside and then we visited the animal sculpture garden.





Next, we headed into the Grizzly Coast, where we suddenly became fascinated with having our pictures taken.







We were trying to wrangle Ainsley for a picture with another wolf sculpture, when this young man jumped up behind the world. Dad told him to smile too, and he did.



Love,
Ainsley, Ben and Cameron

Minnesota Zoo

Yesterday, all of the first graders at Kimberly Lane went to the Minnesota Zoo. Mom was a chaperon. Here are some fun pictures from our trip.








Love,
Ben

Our Visit to Michigan - Day 2

On our second day in Michigan, we went to the Detroit Zoo. Here we are in front of the Rackham Fountain.


We also went to see the penguins, which was one of our Daddy's favorites growing up.


Then we made our way to the Arctic Ring of Life exhibit, which was awesome.



They had a big polar bear statue right near the entrance.


They also had a tunnel that you could walk through underwater and see the seals and polar bears swim over you.



We also got a good glimpse of the polar bears from our zoo, the Como Park zoo. Here is one of them. We think it is Neil.


We also passed this cute elephant statue and took a picture.


The last thing we did was to go into the butterfly house and walk around. Here is Ben next to a really big butterfly.



Love,
Ben and Cameron

PS: If you ever shopped at Oakland Mall growing up, like our Daddy did, you might remember this hippo used to be outside of Hudson's. It's not here at the zoo!