Milwaukee County Zoo
Oh boy! The kids were super excited to get up and out to head to the Milwaukee County Zoo. It boasts 200 acres of exploration (just 16 less acres than Brookfield Zoo here in Illinois) and I think we walked every bit of it. The layout is not as spread out as Brookfield though, so we didn’t notice the amount of walking that we did until I looked down at my steps counter. We stopped over at Farm Fest at the children’s zoo, and we able to participate in quite a few things. There was cow milking – which we ALL did, and *I* happened to rock, ice cream, a monarch butterfly learning garden and station, a live bluegrass band, a woman on stilts, several cows and a goat petting corral. When I think about it, we probably could have stayed in the children’s farm for the majority of the day and been fine. However, we visited almost every single exhibit, because that’s what you do when you visit a zoo out of town. The day was perfect as well. I think that it was 75 degrees for most of the day, which is weather that makes my personality shine. Even the ANIMALS were loving it, and put on for all of us. I’m not sure if our favorite house was the Big Cat House or the Primate House, but I’ll let you know that we loved every moment of it. It was just a day that let us know that the Earth is amazing and that the animal structure and hierarchy is massive. Let’s not even mention all of the spots that were available for photo ops, which we took advantage of. Because, they’re awesome.
My plan was to only stay at the zoo for an hour and a half, but we ended up staying for 4+ hours and still didn’t really get to see absolutely everything. We’ll definitely be back for a visit, even if it’s a day drive, we’ll be back. I think that I loved the layout a little bit more than I thought that I would. Being able to trek from one exhibit to the next without much thought to how far we had to walk was wonderful. The twizzlers even walked all day, and no one complained about being tired. We did get to sit down in the Family Farm area, and there was also a playground that more energy could be expelled on. It was Family Farm weekend and while it was a bit crowded, there was still more than enough room for my littles, and even my teen to be comfortable.
There is one zoo tram that runs about every 20 minutes to show you where you want to walk before you get there. We had just missed taking it when we walked through the zoo gates, so we started our walk, and immediately ran into flamingos. They were CLOSE. That’s another thing that I think that I wasn’t prepared for. How close the animals were to us. The aviary was one of the first exhibits we walked through, and it was amazing. I have so many photos, but I won’t be able to share them all here, lest you tire of me. I’ll connect my Google+ album for you to flip through though.
The other two houses that we really loved were the Big Cat House and the Primate House. It was nice to see some of these animals up close and personal. They were behind pretty thick glass, and for that we were grateful. Especially with the Tiger, who paced for a while back and forth while looking at all of the zoogoers.
What’s your favorite zoo? Is there a place that you ALWAYS must go to when you get there? Do you find the local zoo in places that you visit when you go on vacation? Let me know where I should go next!
Many thanks to Visit Milwaukee for arranging the visit during Family Farm week for us! All thoughts and opinions are our own.
Picture #2 is everything. And the kissing monkeys! I want to go!