ZOO!

We finally made it to the zoo. My mom said they used to have discount days so I called and discoved that every 2nd tuesday of the month was a $4 day! Considering that usually it is $10.50 an adult and $7.50 a child this was a HUGE discount! To top that, they take off $1.50 if you ride the MAX (public transportation, the max is a light rail). Excited to be able to afford it, we started planning. Brittney and Violet are coming of course, and Mom and Eric. Better bring the wagon to carry Eric in, and Brittneys extra umbrella stroller for any other tired kid. How to take the wagon on the bus and max? Tip it up and strap it to the back of my wheelchair. Handle hangs down in my face, but if you turn the wheels sideways it is higher and offcenter so that worked. We are meeting Mom and Eric there. They are going to park and ride. We miss our bus because they have the whole sidewalk torn up near my house and half the street blocked. Gotta walk a block and the bus goes by on the way. Darn. Chris (brother) calls to let me know that Mom is on her way but she forgot her phone. I am thinking that finding her will be interesting.....

Get to the zoo and stare in amazement. The line wraps up the sidewalk and around the corner. Every poor family in the Portland metro area is in line!!! It must have been a quarter mile line. Sigh. Brittney goes off to see if Mom is in the line somewhere while we trudge (ok I rolled but kids definently trudged) uphill to the back of the line. Suprisingly it moved fairly fast and we only waited about 40min (ya its a long time but we were moving at least and the money I saved was more then hubby makes in an hour so its all good). THEN there was the line to the bathroom. Always a line at the womens. Trying to get in with wheelchar (we DID take off wagon) was FUN. BUT after getting past the gate and the bathroom it opened up a bit. After all, the zoo is very roomy. I was suprised more animals werent out. I thought that the sunny, but with clouds and breeze, would have been perfect animal weather.

The kids had fun looking. Matthew had to see the bats and Rachel wanted monkeys. Of course, anywhere you had a good view of an animal was crowded and required patience to see, and some people grumbled about the wheelchair towing a wagon that took up room but we just ignored that.

Lunch (dinner) was actually the best part as far as comfortable goes. We sat in their grass arena area (tiered) as kids ran (and crawled). There were few people there (nothing going, we missed the presentation that we were aiming for) and it was shady and perfect.

Brittney took kids into elephant building as I knew it was too crowded for me and wagon and stroller (Violet was napping in the stroller). Rachel was VERY excited. Why? She saw the elephant pooping! LOL. She thought it was very funny and couldn't stop laughing about it. She said everyone else was saying it was gross, but she thought it was FUNNY.

We were there till closing. It really cleared out the last hour so we ran down to see the bats again (it had been VERY crowded and a tight spot before so we had only peeked). That was cool because they were starting to wake up a bit (closed at 7pm) so we saw them stretching out their wings, walking on the grid ceiling with their claws, and even a few short flights.

 My silly girl. Well, after we left we saw the line just for the elevator to get down to the max (its deep underground at this stop, the only one that I know of) and realized that the max was going to be too crowded so we decided to hang out and wait a bit. I realised my hubby was now off work so gave him a call to come get kids and wagons and extra strollers. We do not all fit in the van (with Brittney and Violet) so Brittney and I caught the max back. Decided to go to Freddies which is a few blocks from max stop. We had fun browsing the sidewalk sale. Then it was 10pm and we had had snacks for dinner and were starving. We went to Red Robin and ate bottomless fries till we couldn't eat any more! I LOVE their ranch dip. Found out its a Cisco seasoning mixed with mayo and buttermilk (not supposed to have that but sometimes its worth it). Then a walk home. Love walking at night. And feel safe knowing we are protected from most things.

Where, you may be asking, was my mom??? Well, turns out that that crowd of people ALSO had the idea to park and ride so there were no parking spots at the max station where my mom headed to. So she decided to drive all the way (as did many others). She ended up driving around in a line of cars in the parking lot searching for a space for an HOUR before giving up and going home. Of course we did not know any of this till she got home 4 hrs after we were supposed to meet and called. Poor mom! We are going to try again in August but THIS time we are meeting at MY house and all bus-to-max-ing it, and planning on being there earlier to hopefully miss the after lunch crowds.

I thought that despite the stress and the crowd and the LONG day it was all worth it. Looking forward to next month with Eric, and the months when most kids are in school....
For more pictures, super cute ones of the kids more then animals, visit my picassa web album:
http://picasaweb.google.com/Jenster6605/ZOO#