Seconds With Steff

We were at the zoo for a few days, so please allow for costume changes as we cover the 580 acres.

Before anything else, this is our prize picture of the entire trip!!! I had made the very adult choice to have funnel cake for lunch. I set the guys up and left them to go get my funnel cake when I realized it was closed and got an auntie Annie’s mall pretzel instead. I had to wait a while because they were making pretzels. I had seen the doctor a few people back on line and she eventually caught up to me.  I said thank you for doing the show. And of course, struck up a conversation about our trip, and she asked if I wanted to take a picture. In the meantime, I had been texting Frank and he brought Hunter to me as soon as he could. So I give you Dr. Katie from Secrets of the Zoo!!!

Upon arrival at the zoo, Hunter made a beeline for Adventure Cove which houses an amazing sea lion walkthrough where water surrounds and the sea lions can swim over and under you. It also holds Jack Hannah’s Animal Encounters which is for smaller animals that zookeepers are training or use to have personal experiences with visitors.

They first thing he said was that he wanted to see the 16 macaws that were saved in episode one of Secrets of the Zoo and what do we see fly over us, a scarlet macaw, so I start talking to staff members and was told to find Katie. I not only find her, but stalk her like a crazy woman, explaining that we have the Animal Encounters experience tomorrow and she promised to make sure there would be a macaw present. in the meantime, we watched LT, the macaw go through some training.

The Heart of Africa area is themed as Mudiwa Village and had cheetahs, lions, zebras, and Hunter’s favourite, giraffes which you can hand feed!

Feeding the giraffes was a highlight, and we just kept going back!

The Polar Frontier had beautiful brown and polar bears and artic foxes. The theming was gorgeous and had a ton of ways to be able to view the animals

The North American Section is huge and included a Bob Evans Farms petting zoo. but was being renovated with a $35M redevelopment project.

Moving over to Asia Quest, the area is gorgeous and heartbreaking as you walk through the educational area, animals that are now extinct are represented everywhere.

The Shores was a nice size aquarium section with stunning manatees!

Australia & Islands had several nice areas including the Koalas, who had the best smelling habitat and and walk through walkabout just like The Miller Park Zoo in Illinois.

Dinosaur Island of so this was … interesting. For an extra small charge we took a boat ride through extinct dinosaurs where we could also see some of the Australian animals.

The Congo Expedition

The gorillas … the gorillas … the gorillas!