Albuquerque BioPark Trip

This weekend we drove five hours to go to the zoo.  Our weekend was so noisy!  I forget how loud kids can get when they are stuck in the van for several hours...not sure how we're going to survive the marathon trip to Idaho and Oregon this summer. 

We knew there was a good zoo in Albuquerque, NM so we made a weekend trip out of it.  Friday afternoon we drove to the hotel, checked in, dumped our stuff into the room (poolside, whoop whoop!), and checked out the swimming pool.  It was a weird green color (boo).  Then we tried to go eat at Applebee's, but it was Friday night and busy and we weren't up for a long wait with four hungry people, so we went to Denny's instead, where there was no wait and our food was even decent.  After dinner we headed back to the hotel for a swim in the unsightly water.  The kids loved it, and Casey and I loved that they were able to burn off some excess energy before going to bed, which still took a looooong time due to them jumping from bed to bed and Breyan smacking her face against a bed when she didn't jump far enough. (head injury #1)  Eventually everyone fell asleep.

In the morning we had breakfast, checked out of our room, and went to the BioPark; consisting of a zoo, aquarium, and botanic garden. As we walked up to the zoo entrance Jesse tripped on the curb and smacked his forehead on some bricks (head injury #2). 

Here are some of the many pictures I took on our trip.

Breyan watching the alligator snapping turtle.  Those things are huge!


Jesse was a little freaked out by it.

One of the fifteen-feet long crocodiles. 

A picture for Jenny.

We got to watch them feed the seals and sea lions.

And we watched the polar bears.

The other crocodile.

A wood duck.

One of the grumpiest lions I've seen.  We watched him for several minutes and the whole time he was growling and snarling. It was awesome!

I think this is a red kangaroo.  Doesn't it look relaxed?

Three of the five elephants.  The one on the left is going to have a baby in September.  They keep the male elephants in a separate enclosure for part of the day.

Giraffe.  This one was eating the wooden fence.

A cheetah.

The hippos.  This was Breyan's favorite.

The koala.  I wouldn't let us leave until we found the koala, and it wouldn't even look at me.

After we finished with the zoo we took a train over to the aquarium and gardens. Sometime along the train ride Jesse hit his head again (#3), and so did Breyan (#4).

Look at Bree's blue eyes!  They just kill me.

Pictures from the aquarium will be coming shortly, but it wasn't as impressive as the zoo.  I have a tendency to compare all aquariums to SeaWorld, and they just can't measure up.

Jesse also hit his head on a sign while we were walking (#5).  My kids really need to watch where they're going!

We drove home Saturday night after having an early dinner at Applebee's.  The drive home was long and we were exhausted when we finally pulled in to the driveway.  The kids slept in their clothes. Gross, I know, but we were too tired for jammies.

The End