A New Zoo to Review
Hello to everyone.
Today, we toured a local zoo. The website led us to believe that there were nearly 100 different animals you could touch and interact with. We thought Xavier would love that.
As it turned out, the 100 of different animals was something of a gray area. The actual petting zoo had all the stock (and boring) animals like a giant tortoise, a llama, some goats. The armadillo was not available; that would have been something interesting. Xavier found the goat pooping as it ate the most interesting. We had to hold him back from examining and "petting" the fresh goat droppings.
Xavier and Rebecca did feed a giraffe. The zoo had a high platform the giraffes could wonder over to should they choose. The platform put them at eye level with child-sized people. One dollar bought you two slices of sweet potato. You could hear Xavier squeal with delight when the giraffe's big gray tongue wrapped his potato and pulled it in. No petting of the animals was allowed, however.
Later on, Xavier fed a deer. Twenty-five cents bought a handful of deer feed. Xavier had fun both feeding the deer and petting it. He even sampled the food pellets for himself.
Xavier got to pet three other animals: a spiny hedgehog, a small turtle and a bearded lizard. These animals appeared throughout the park, their handlers roaming the grounds and answering questions.
We ended our tour of the zoo by walking through an art exhibit where the art was constructed from trash that washed up on the beach. The art was billed as an educational mechanism. Still, most of the sculptures were interesting. Xavier found the giant penguin the most interesting.
From the zoo, we drove from Cocoa Beach to Orlando. Xavier napped in the car (he needed it!). We decided to have dinner at a Disney-owned restaurant named The Rain Forest Cafe. From its description, we thought all the animatronics, sights and sounds it would hold Xavier's attention. They did; they distracted him enough he did not eat a thing. By the time we got back to the hotel, he was starving.