I love the Memphis Zoo. We’ve done so many cool things there over the years. Ice skating, zoo camp, Zoo Boo, swimming in the fountain, seeing the panda and polar bears. Abigail threw her first temper tantrum in the zoo just before she turned two. Two summers ago, while the girls were at zoo camp, I set up a portable office in the Teton Trek lodge near the grizzly bears and worked looking out the window at the geyser fountain. It is an amazing place! My parent used to go there fifty years ago when they were freshmen in college. Some of their first dates were walking through the animals’ enclosures. Three generations of my family have enjoyed outings there. I am amazed at how the zoo keeps getting better and better and offering more and more learning and fun!
In August, when Gracie, Abigail, and I were in Memphis for our last Cousin Camp week of the summer, we stopped by Bryant’s for some yummy biscuits and then headed over to the zoo. The girls played in the fountain for a while and then my sister joined us after work. She suggested that we stop by and feed the giraffes.
We paid a few dollars for some lettuce leaves and the girls timidly fed the two giraffes.
It was a very, very hot day and there weren’t too many people at the zoo, so the giraffe feeding station was pretty deserted. Once the girls finished with their pieces, the trainers kept handing them more and more and giving the girls tips for different way to feed the giraffes.
The girls got braver and braver and by the end were letting the giraffes take the greens straight from their mouths just like the trainer showed them.
That much closeness to a giraffe wasn’t exactly up Gracie’s alley, so she passed on the mouth to mouth food exchange. She was definitely up for cooling off in the geyser by the Teton Trek lodge, though!
I can’t wait to see what the zoo has in store for the future. A Zembezi River exhibit for the hippos and flamingos is coming soon and a nature trail with a raised boardwalk is in the works, too. What a great place to spend the day (or a lot of days!)!