Visiting the Zoo

Today, H and I ventured out in temperatures that fell bit by bit as clouds drifted unhurriedly across the sky, tucking in the sun like a patient parent waiting for their child to wind down before bed, and went to the Philadelphia Zoo. I love Zoos. I love watching the animals and cocking my head at their strange features. I love the surprised, obvious observations people make: Wow! Look how big he is!, or Oh he's sleeping! or, Look at him! He's climbing a tree! Do you see him climbing the tree?, like they're discovering something new and so intensely interesting, they just can't contain themselves. And even, for the most part, I enjoy the children who point and tug at their parents and poke their fingers in the cages, and ask, wide eyed Where is he? or What's he doing? Unlike most other family activities, it's a place parents and children seem to discover together, both unknowing, with furrowed brows and open mouths.

I used to go to Zoo Camp every year when I was a child, a day camp where we'd follow flirty, too-confident teenagers around, stopping at animal cages and learning quirky facts (Do YOU know what color a polar bear's skin is? I did, by my third year at zoo camp!), finally ending the day with a trip inside a starkly white building, in a starkly white room, where we were able to pet, with a gentle two-finger touch, one at a time, a snake, or a porcupine, or a chinchilla. I liked zoo camp, and rediscovering zoos as an adult always makes me wish I had ignored all of that hatred for my high school Biology class that I had built up over lists of vocabulary words and natural cycles I thought were dry and boring, and marched forth to study Zoology or Animal Behavior, to change the world with bold activism and field work that would save many a species from extinction. As it is now, I look excitedly at the animals, and diligently but lamely at their name plates and descriptions, knowing full well I won't remember any of it.

Over a gooey, warm waffle and a steaming cup of coffee after our adventures with the animals, H commented that it's the third zoo we had been to together, as a couple. That made me smile. I've enjoyed every minute of my recent visits. And I can safely say, wherever we live, my children will definitely get a big dose of zoos (if not Zoo Camp), and a little encouragement that studying animals, even making the obvious observations, is much too exciting and interesting to give up on, even over a tedious and drab Biology textbook page.