A Zoo of a Day

Distance Travelled: A little hard to discern as we were all over the place today, but didn’t really get far. I would say about 175 km.

Highlights: The Calgary Zoo, breakfast with Dale & Hugh, picking up Nate’s birthday present and surprising him with it, dinner with Jess, Harley & Borden, and arriving in Drumheller!

Jericho’s favorite: Gorilla show at the Zoo

Malachi’s favorite: The giraffe’s at the Zoo

Wildlife spotted: a Mama deer and her bambi, and a tonne at the Zoo!!!

You are Where? Drumheller!!

Today was a long, long day. We are all quite tired, but we crammed a lot in and had a blast. We realized that maybe our travels have been a little lax as of late and we may have to start picking up the pace a little. But Alberta is quite fun and it was difficult to choose what to do with our time.

Last night we finally decided that we would head to the Calgary Zoo, even though we really should have headed on the road, we knew the boys would love it. It was a good choice. Clementine was packed finally and we managed to drag ourselves away from Aunt Dale’s incredibly hospitality.

A few days ago, while we were in Cranbrook, I contacted a friend’s Mother-in-law who draws portraits. I asked if she could possibly do a drawing of Jericho and Malachi for Nate’s birthday. She did it in like 3 days. So I told Nate we had to stop just outside of Cochrane for his present. He was baffled and had absolutely no idea what it could possibly be, especially when we pulled up to a beautiful blue house in a residential area. The woman told him to come upstairs and when she placed the portrait in his hand I was THIS CLOSE to tears. It’s stunning. I would take a picture and post it, but it’s been all wrapped up. Nate said he loved it.

After that, we headed straight for the Zoo. It was almost 1 pm by the time we arrived, but we knew our boys wouldn’t last there all day anyhow. The Calgary Zoo is very well constructed. There are cliffs, amazing enclosures for the gorilla’s, a beautiful butterfly exhibit, and so on. There was a lot to see, and we did make the boys walk so they were a little grumpy in the end… but there were plenty of highlights for them.

1. Learning about animal poop. What little boy wouldn’t love an entire presentation on the various kinds of poop?

2. Gorilla show – not only was it informative, but the backdrop of gorilla’s play fighting was the perfect touch.

3. The Butterfly Exhibit was a photographers dream. I’m not a photographer by any stretch and I could not stop snapping. The boys each had a butterfly in their hand at one point.

4. The Black Bear’s and Grizzly Bears – Incredible creatures!

5. Elephants – one pooped in front of us… see above.

Once we were done at the Zoo, we headed to dinner with our friend Jessica and her two sons, one of whom celebrates a birthday tomorrow. It’s strange seeing him turn 8 as he learned to walk at our wedding! The boys were cranky for most of dinner, so it wasn’t as awesome as it could have been, but it was fun to catch up with Jessica and to see how much her boys have grown. Next time we will visit longer and hug your husband!

With dinner over, we left Calgary and I drove as fast as I could to Drumheller. Clementine hated the dirt road filled with potholes through the construction section, but loved the brand new smooth blacktop. What a difference. The boys are currently asleep and eager to go to the Tyrell Museum tomorrow. We’re not sure how long we’ll stay as we need to get a move on at some point here.

It was a little funny tonight as we were telling the boys we wouldn’t have a fire tonight and Jericho said “We could use rocks!” Nate tried to explain that rocks are not the best for fires and Malachi had the perfect solution… “If rocks don’t work, we can just use water!"