Traipsing along after my granddaughter and her friend at the zoo, I was surprised how interested they were in the residents of the reptile house. I think this is a boa constrictor but I wasn’t making notes. It looks indolent to me but with a very bad attitude. Ellie has no fear of picking up a well-fed boa. On the other hand, she told me recently that she was afraid of bananas but was unable to explain. Maybe she was pranking me.
The St. Louis Zoo has a big carousel with 64 painted wood animals. It's another stop on Ellie's don't miss list. Note that she chose a penguin.
So I took the kid to the zoo the other day to get her face out of screens. We have one of the best in the country. There is a walk-through area with life-size replicas of dinosaurs. The newer ones spit water at children passing by. There is one of those stick your face through a hole and take a picture boards. She's had her face painted with a Frozen motif and posed with her precious Lambie, given to her at birth by one of our colleagues and never far from her side.
Maybe one last picture for now from the new dinosaur thing at the zoo. Ellie wants to go back this weekend so there will probably be more later.
I didn't make a note of the name of these nasty-looking little creatures. The display gives the impression that they hunt in packs or just like to go out for a frolic with their pals. I don't think they could climb trees with those limbs but then neither can I. Good thing they are made of resin.
At least I think so. You can tell by the teeth, can't you? No sharp incisors here. Still, I wouldn't wear my floppy green hat if I were creeping in for a close-up.
The bony processes that look like fins on a stegosaurus' spine are spectacular. I assume they are for cooling with a function like the coils in a car radiator but I'm too lazy to look it up.
Aren't you glad you live many millions of years after the last really big meteor hit the earth? Another one from the Dinoraurus exhibit at the St. Louis Zoo.
Some people don't have any sense. I wouldn't let my dog, if I had a dog, which I don't, this close to the chompers of a T. Rex. But of course it's all fake, unless the scientists at nearby Washington University have made a remarkable breakthrough. It's been a couple of weeks now but we took Ellie to this new thing at the zoo they call Dinoraurus. There are a number of these creatures that can shake around a bit and make fearsome noises. Kids love it.
There is more to see from the Origami In The Garden show but we haven't had a Monday visit with the kid in a while. We took her to the zoo on Saturday to see an new attraction with the rather silly name of Dinoraurus. (They had to make up an odd title to trademark it.) There are life-size models of many species that move to some extent and, well, roar. Children love it. One of them with fanciful colors serves as a seat for young dino jockeys.
What goes through the minds of children?
One of the few outdoor things to do now is visit the zoo. Numbers are strictly limited and you have to make a reservation, not that there are many people in mid-winter. The family walked through an area where the space for the larger animals bore some resemblance to their usual habitats. The path was bordered by sculpted cement made to look like rock and crags. Ellie crawled into this recess, almost like a little cave.
I asked her what she was doing. "I'm a homeless baby bear," she replied. After a bit of this we all went ahead to see more creatures.
The central pond or lake at the St. Louis Zoo near sunset, partly frozen over, partly not.The ducks don't seem to care.
Yesterday's post mentioned that we took Ellie to the zoo on Saturday, one of those mild winter days we often (but not always!) get. We are fortunate that our middle-sized city has one of the best in the country. Probably only San Diego is in the same class and its concept is very different.
A number of Asian elephants were out for a stroll. (We've ridden Asian elephants, in Asia, twice, one of which was terrifying and the other more terrifying, but that's another story.) I may be anthropomorphizing too much but these two looked like an affectionate couple or best of friends. They stood for a long time with trunks intertwined, coiling and recoiling. Elephants are intelligent and clearly have an emotional life.
Well, at least you know where we are and what we're doing. Not too inspired as I prepare this Thursday night. There seems to be a sense of anxiety and foreboding around, and it has nothing to do with Halloween. At least that's what I feel. Something needs to see us through the next week and the winter.
This Boo at the Zoo thing wasn't very scary. Lots of lit displays with orange, yellow, purple and white on a black background. Cartoonish ghosts and witches with very fake tombstones. No headless ghouls popping out from behind corners, screaming at children while grabbing for them with skeletal fingers. In other words, about the right speed for my seven year old granddaughter.
Halloween in the US was not about terror and death when I was a kid. At least in NYC, all we did was cut a hole in an old sheet and chalk our faces white to make a cheap ghost. The rest of it was all about canvassing a dense neighborhood begging for candy.
BY THE WAY, I've been having trouble with someone leaving vituperative anonymous comments damning middle aged and older people for destroying the world. You can't just block anonymous comments on Blogger anymore so I had to change the settings to allow comments only from people with Google accounts, which includes almost everybody. It will not affect Facebook. If you have trouble leaving a comment here please let me know.
One of our major local organizations has an annual event for the kids called Boo at the Zoo. We've taken Ellie in the past but it has been almost unbearably cold and crowded. This year was capacity controlled, of course, and the weather was relatively mild. She likes it more than I do, but I like taking her there.
We don't know where she learned to pose but she is quite a ham. Her mother, Emily, spent hours making her a custom-made costume that is a bit too esoteric for me. It it based (I think) on the character Korra, the avatar and water bender of the South, in the animated series Avatar. Great job by mom but when I was that age all I was worried about was where Clark Kent was going to find a phone booth to change into Superman.
