Lions and Tigers and Bears (OK, no Bears), Oh My!

Today, we went on a journey. We traveled to Africa, Indonesia and Australia ... all from the comfort of Fort Wayne, Ind. Gretchen and I are on vacation this week, so we decided to visit the Children's Zoo here. We saw lots of fun things. Here's a brief recap for your viewing pleasure.

Allen's swamp monkey eating some fruit. There were a lot of monkeys at the zoo.

The nice people at the zoo left Augie this old Land Rover to drive around.
Unfortunately, it got a flat tire and we had to walk the rest of the day.

This great white pelican might have been the only thing that held still for me to take its picture all day.

The spotted hyenas were much less cooperative. This one hide behind a log while the other one licked itself.

The king of the jungle kept his distance, too.

We got there a couple minutes after the zoo opened, so a lot of the animals were still eating, like the banded mongoose.

Being a kid's zoo, it had lots of fun things for kids to do.
During the African loop, it had several tents with stump seats for the kids to sit on...

... and cracked-open eggs.

The giraffes were really tall. They had to feed them with telephone poles and pulleys.

But the black-masked lovebirds were small, and they ate by the dozens from trays filled with eggs.

Somewhere along the way an eagle and an owl mated to make the Verreaux eagle owl. No really, that's what it's called.

'Aye captain, more fun ahead!

Told you.

Which is exactly why some of the animals incorporated a watch dog.

But many, like the wallaby, didn't seem too concerned.

A couple of the peacocks had more pressing matters to deal with.

According to the sign, the river otter may bite. Isn't that what the barriers are for?

Some unimaginative explorer decided hundreds of years ago that this was the black-footed penguin.
Apparently there were so many running around with green feet that it's black feet were unique. True story.

So I made sure to get Augie and Gretchen's photo in front of the rare species.

Little Poof was popular with many of the kids, but not as popular as the real train on site.

Gretchen took a water break while Augie and I rode the train.

Was it fun being a wombat? That's what the sign on the wall said next to this tunnel.
Apparently, wombats crawl through a lot of tunnels.

I don't what this bird's name is, but I'm going to guess black and white bird.

Look, mom, I'm a joey!

A lot of the indoor creatures didn't photograph well, but the jellyfish did.

According to the sign, the kangaroo's No. 1 predator is the dingo. Want to guess where they housed the two animals?
Yep, right next to each other.

When we needed a break, we took a ride down the lazy river.

We thought about watching the seal show at 11, but decided to keep walking around the zoo instead.

Well into the morning, the ring-tailed lemur was still snacking on breakfast.

The komodo dragon took his afternoon nap a little early.

One of the last stops of the day was the carousel.
There weren't any real elephants at the zoo, so Augie rode one on the carousel.