Philly Zoo

This Sunday's featured trip into Philly had us going into the zoo, which happens to be the country's first and oldest zoo. Before going, I secured 2 tickets to the zoo through my company's discount program and got them for $13 a piece (whereas they are $18 at the door). Parking, however, was not reduced and it cost $12 to get into one of their lots.

Zoo members get free parking and free entrance to the zoo for a full calendar year.

When we first entered the zoo, the first thing we found was a Philly Phanatic statue. This is the second statue we've discovered in the city thus far.

This summer, 20 of them have been planted around the city and we plan on getting pictures with all of them. Only 18 more to go!

Instead of just droning on about each exhibit we saw here, I figured I'd just mention some of the highlights. One portion that the zoo is advertising heavily this year is Creatures of Habitat - Lego creations of various animals. Seeing these is a pretty impressive site. I know it's something I never could create with my Lego-abilities!

My personal favorite animal has always been bears. Unfortunately, the polar bears didn't do much more than sleep while we were there. However, this friendly fellow was walking around quite a bit.

Leann's favorites are any of the cat-variety. We were able to see some lions, jaguars, leopards and cheetahs while we were there. She just wanted to take all of them home. Luckily for me, the trunk was already full in her car!

Of course, everyone loves giraffes. These animals really move gracefully. One day I plan on going to Giraffe Manor in Kenya that has them come to your hotel window in the morning!

The peacocks were quite magnificent as well. It's amazing how animals colored like this appear in nature. Around the zoo, the peacocks are free roaming, allowing visitors to get closer to these magnificent birds.

There were plenty more animals around the zoo, and I'd recommend anyone in the area to check it out.

After the zoo, we decided to walk down to UPenn's campus to go to the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. I'll talk about that and share some pictures for everyone tomorrow.