Happy Random Tuesday Y’all!!

Istanbul, Turkey:

So Friday my mom and I went to Dallas to pick my sis up from the airport.  While waiting, we got the news about what was going on in Istanbul, Turkey.  I was so thankful I knew my sis was about to land in the Big D, but scared because my brother-in-law and his family was still there.  I texted my brother-in-law to check up on him and he was good.  Later on, I found out his family was all out-of-town visiting his mother’s home town so everyone I know over there was good to go.  🙂

While in Dallas, we decided to visit the Dallas Zoo since in my memory I have never been and even if I had, they’ve updated since then.  We also went to see “The Secret Life of Pets” at the Studio Movie Grill in the area we always stay in close to family.  Unfortunately, they were all sick so we didn’t get to visit with them.  The movie was great!  If you haven’t seen it yet, you need to go.

The Big D Zoo:

So today I wanted to focus more on the zoo.  I love zoos almost as much as I love aquariums.  One of my items on my bucket list is to visit every aquarium and zoo in the States and as many as possibly outside the States.

Saturday morning when we got to the zoo around 915am, we got lucky!  It was very nice outside somewhere around the mid 80’s.  It didn’t start getting super hot until about 11am.  As much as I wanted to go to the zoo just for the heck of it, I also wanted to go cause I wanted to see the Baby Elephant playing in his pool.
Unfortunately, baby and mama elephant were in the back bonding so they were not out for viewing. 🙁

Since it’s hard for mom to get around sometimes, we didn’t get to see all the animals.  We only went to the “Wilds of Africa” side of the zoo, so once we got back to the front to get ready to leave, I realized I never saw the Koalas.  Koalas have always been one of my favorite animals.  When I was little my room use to have them all over the place.

One of my mom’s best friends from college went to Australia and brought me back a bunch of stuffed ones.  Unfortunately, those were in the warehouse fire a few years ago since my mom had them there for storing until I got married and had kids.

Needless to say, while mom and my sis were shopping around in the gift store I quickly made it to where the Koalas were at the very end of the section we didn’t visit.  I took a few pictures of them and then headed back.

Other than the Koalas, I finally managed to see and get some pictures of, we saw all the various animals on the Monorail Safari, which included according to the zoo’s website, “[t]he trains ease along at 3-4 mph on a one-mile loop around the back side of the 106-acre zoo, showing visitors six habitats not accessible by foot: mountain, woodlands, river, arid, semi-arid and bush.  It also circles above the Chimpanzee Forest, crocodile pond and Penguin Cove.  Other animal residents that can be viewed from the monorail include nyala, gerenuk, lesser kudu, ibex, oryx, eland, vultures, storks, addax, bongo and red river hogs” (Dallas Zoo, March 24, 2016).

Here’s a few of the pictures I got of the animals we got to see…

Though we weren’t able to see the baby elephant in the small pool, we did get to see one of the other elephants in the water while the keepers sprayed water on them.  Here’s the video I got.

Hope you enjoyed!!  I certainly cannot wait to go back so I can enjoy the rest of the animals we didn’t get to visit this time.  Hopefully the visit will happen sooner rather than later but I guess we shall see.

Thanks for visiting.  Hope to see you back here again.  If you have any questions or comments feel free to contact me and I will try to answer as quickly as possible.

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References:

Dallas Zoo.  March 24, 2016.  Retrieved July 19, 2016. http://zoohoo.dallaszoo.com/category/exhibits-experiences/monorail-safari/