Chattanooga Zoo

Wow, did we ever have fun today!  I discovered, first thing this morning, that today was free admission to the Chattanooga Zoo.  I told Laura and she said Abi would love go.  I volunteered to take Cora too and off we went.   Cora slept the whole time but I liked having her with us anyway.  At least it gave Laura a nice break.   Her Grandpa joined us after Abi and I had been there for over an hour so he got to be in on some of the fun too.

Abi wasn't so sure about seeing some of the scarier animals.  She was especially concerned about seeing, or rather, not seeing a Tiger.  But we did manage to see a Snow Leopard along with various monkeys, birds - exotic and not so exotic, a Bobcat, a Coyote, Red Pandas (she said, "those aren't Pandas"), a camel, goats, and other animals who's names I can't even remember.

All that was fun, but the real fun began with the jump house!  Oh my, how she loved the jump house.   The lines were short most of the time we so she managed to jump 4 different times.  She would laugh and jump and laugh some more.  She held her own with the big kids just fine.  A couple times she got bumped off her feet when a big kid bumped into her and she would just laugh some more.  What fun! 

The bounce house isn't always at the Zoo.  Today was a special event for the community, including a chili cook-off, lots of booths, displays for the firemen, an emergency helicopter, and other things like that.  

What is always at the zoo is a Merry-Go-Round.  This one is special.   A local artisan is responsible for it's existence.  I don't know the whole story but it's my understanding that he either personally made or was involved in the making of all the animals on the carousel.  He has a school not far away where he teaches people to carve these wonderful creations.

Odd enough, there were no seat belts.  I was quietly amazed.  We're not in California anymore.