Journeys to the Emerald City, Part Two

Part the second - Acting Like A Bunch Of Animals

Day Two dawned, and the dulcet tones of my new alarm woke me far more gently than the jarring "code red" alarm I had been subjecting myself to for the previous eight months. We were not terribly motivated to get our butts in gear quickly, and I think that was to our detriment. We got everyone sorted and went down to the lobby area for our free full breakfast.

Holy moly, there was no space! We stood around like vultures, seeking out enough seats for all of us. We managed to get two different tables, so the kids and I camped out while Hubby and Primus got food. While we waited for that, another four seat table opened up right next to the big kids, so we pounced! I tell you, it's pretty tough to find 6 seats together at 8:30 on a Saturday morning.

But was it ever worth it!

The Springhill Suites puts on an excellent free brekkie. From my fading memory, I recall the following: muffins, danishes, bagels and croissants; various jams, jellies, PB, honey and cream cheese; orange, apple, grapefruit and cranberry juice; fresh apples, oranges and bananas; white and chocolate milk, and two flavours of yogurt; oatmeal with walnuts, raisins, dried cranberries, chocolate chips and brown sugar; sausage and scrambled eggs, and make-your-own Belgian waffles with syrup and strawberries. And of course, the previously mentioned coffee and tea (with yummy flavoured creamers!) OM NOM NOM! We ended up staying there and eating right up until 10 AM. We were *SO* full! We toddled back over to the elevator to grab our stuff for the day. I'd had the foresight to make our PB&J sandwiches the night before, so we had a lunch bag full of sandwiches, gummies, granola bars and Cherry Coke, as well as a bag of chips. Being on a budget, we knew that brown-bagging it for lunch was the best way to go. With everything stuffed into Hubby's backpack, we were off to the Woodland Park Zoo!

The trip took about 25 minutes, and I was thankful that I had taken the time to look on Google Maps for the attractions we were going to, as it gave me the chance to snag convenient parking. We walked around to the front entrance and saw a pretty long line-up, so we hurried over to take our place. We were happy to see how fast they kept that line moving; they had every kiosk open, and got people paid up in record time. I think it took a maximum of 3 minutes for us to get our tickets, fumble with the funny American money and walk away from the delightful young man who helped us, and we were only in the line waiting for 10 minutes, at that. We dropped our fundraising tokens into our desired causes, then went to the gate.

The west entrance opens up onto a nice, wide plaza, with the gift shop on the left and the penguin enclosure on the right, and a nice little photo op straight ahead.

 

L-R: Secunda, Primus, Quarta and Tertius

While I tried to get one useable picture of the hobbitses, Hubby ran over to the Guest Services kiosk, for he had discovered our saving grace - the Little Blue Wagon of Awesomeness. Seriously, this saved our backs and our butts. For $10, we were able to rent a sturdy plastic wagon that had a long handle and two nylon seatbelt straps. That meant that we could pack both Tertius and Quarta in it when they complained that their legs were tired, we could dump the backpack in it so neither Hubby nor myself would get permanent grooves in our shoulders (though I daresay he's got them anyway from so many years at university), and it gave us a surface to sit on, put a foot up to tie laces or just get organized.

Love that Little Blue Wagon of Awesomeness!

Our first stop, curiously enough, was the pressed penny machines. Both Primus and Secunda began a collection when they came to Seattle with my parents in 2010, and I have added to it on my travels to our provincial capital. They have these nifty little books that store their various and sundry pennies from all the places they've been to. Once the arduous process of selection and acquisition was finished, it was teetering on lunchtime, so we headed to the picnic shelter. The zoo has a nice little covered area for picnics, replete with tables. They also have food for sale on-site, but their "food fair" style set-up makes for total chaos; I had to take the kids in there for the bathroom, but I would have hated eating lunch there during the rush, as you could barely move.

We really only got to see about half of the exhibits, as Secunda started feeling poorly, followed by Primus. But we enjoyed the gorilla enclosure, mostly because we got to witness a bit of a fracas. A young male went up to the sleeping silverback and scooped up some hay (a couple of times), dumping it on him. This rather unceremoniously woke him, and he began to charge at the young male in that "You wanna do this, punk?" kind of way. Well, that scared the bejeebus out of the young male, who went running to the nearest female (we were assuming it was his mommy, mostly because that's more funny) for protection. In a manner of speaking, it worked, as the silverback got to within 6 feet of him twice, both times sending the young male running farther away, so once he was satisfied that he wasn't going to be disturbed again, he sat down by the bamboo plant and ripped a nice light snack off for himself.

"You wanna do this, punk?"

Other cool stuff we saw there:
 - lots of monkeys and lemurs
 - Jaguars
 - the zoo's new baby giraffe's auntie, who came out to the enclosure, and whom Quarta managed to get a decent photo of

Auntie takes a break from admiring the newest
baby giraffe (wish we could have admired it!)

 - the bug display - kid of neat and creepy, all at the same time!
 - the coolest playground area, which gave the kids a 30 minute break for crazy time, and us 30 minutes of sanity.

Quarta does her best (and cutest)
tortoise impression

Secunda pretends to be a bird in this
huge mock-up of a wren's nest

Distance shot of the play area,
including the cool cave-like structure
that I was sure would cause at least one
semi-serious, bleeding injury

 By the halfway point, both Primus and Secinda were complaining of feeling Very Sick Indeed, so we decided to duck out early, and head back to our hotel before meeting up with our dear friend for dinner.

When we had left the room that morning, I had set out a nice tip for the hotel staff, hoping that it might result in superior service. I was not disappointed. We had pulled up our blankets on the beds, and I'd laid out Tertius and Quarta's stuffed animals and crochet blankets on the one bed. Imagine our surprise when we came back to find this:

"Oh, look! Blankie Swan decided to come and
visit Bunny and Lamby!"

We were delighted to find this added touch to our room, and the extra toiletries were much appreciated :) This is yet another reason why I would stay at this hotel again.

After about an hour of downtime wherein the big kids laid down and tried to feel better, it was time to head into Bothell proper for dinner with our friend Skaldic, who had lots of medieval goodies to pass along to us. But most importantly, we got to see our friend and have some real quality time with him; that felt really good, and the two big hugs I gave/got still feel woefully inadequate, because it's hard to encapsulate what your heart contains in a hug. My own cold was in full swing by then, and despite the relief that the cold meds provided, I was losing my voice. This was not helped by seeing the sign of the restaurant across the street.

"What the...?"

The fits of laughter this sparked in me pretty much guaranteed that I'd have no voice come morning. We said our final goodbyes and set off for the hotel again. And once again, we practically closed down the pool area; that hot tub was really calling to me, and the warm felt so good on my achy body and neck! Another hot cup of tea to take upstairs and we actually crawled into bed and had the lights off before midnight. I took some time before bed to organize the dirty laundry, make sandwiches for the next day's lunch, and to begin packing up non-essentials so that check-out would run more smoothly. Primus misplaced the joy buzzer he'd bought at Magic Mouse the day before, so we spent a good chunk of that time searching for it, to no avail (Editor's note: this has a happy ending, as it was found almost a month later in a side pocket of his backpack).

Ahh, sleep!

Stay tuned for the next installment - (Cowardly) Lions and Daleks and Scares, Oh My!