Day: May 6, 2006

Sleep comes.

The time on this post doesn’t make sense. Oh! The daylight savings problem on WordPress time stamps still exists. Wow. My time stamps are 2 hours off. That means we settled in not at 10:10pm but at 12:10am.

The night hike was very interesting. We saw white tigers, snow leopards, heard birds, the whelp of a wild Tommy as his foot slipped off the sidewalk and he fell like a muppet but without injury, heard lions roar, and tigers howl. At the end of our hike, we changed clothes and laid out our sleeping bags, then were treated to some biofacts of ivory, rhino horns, snake skins, teeth, etc, most of which are illegal to possess unless you are a zoo. It did not take long for everyone to find sleep.

Snow leopard gave us a great show

No pictures were allowed during our night hike so I cannot show the beauty of the snow leopard. As we approached, she stalked us and our instructors’/guides’ flash lights would catch a glimpse of her peeking out. One of our guides used to feed this particular snow leopard so as she began talking the animal pranced to up to the cage to be as close as possible. She holds her super fluffy tail in her mouth and twirls as if to say, "isn’t it beautiful!"

Pictures are being posted to http://flickr.com/photos/mccaughan

We have arrived at the zoo safely.

Some parents were already at Gate 1. Turns out some Girls Scouts have laid claim to the Audubon Society building from the 1800s so we will be at Tiger Tops (Gate 9). Tiger Tops is one of the original zoo buildings that was a small restuarant which patrons could enter and "eat at the zoo" without ever entering the zoo. Gate 9 requires an escort so we are to pile 20 scouts, 5 adults, and their related gear into the 4 cars that will be staying. Physics doesn’t allow such miracles so all parents are allowed into Gate 9 to drop off then the parents not staying are let back out with a footnote that pickup will be at the main entrance not Gate 1. No one mentions needing a 7am exodus.

After getting out of the car, Noah and Phillip walk within 6 feet of a rabbit without noticing and scare it away. Bad omen?

East bound flows. I 40 west is a parking lot!

Just now made the interstate. What day is this!

The boys are stuck in traffic trying to get to the interstate. East bound looks good.