Birthdays

My youngest and I are 2 days apart for birthdays. I had been wanting to take the children to the Cleveland Zoo and so for my husband agreed that if our youngest and I could agree, we could go to the zoo for our birthdays. I had been to the Cleveland Zoo when I was in High School. The only thing I could remember about the zoo was that we rode on the tram. This was a huge thing because we never rode the tram out the zoo near where I grew up, The Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden. To ride the train, the carousel or the tram, you had to pay and my parents didn't pay for that. We would walk up and down the hills. Not a huge thing as the hills were what we lived on and we walked them all the time. So riding a tram at a zoo was a huge event. So we went to the Cleveland Metro Parks Zoo. Here is an interesting thing, they would only allow us to use 2 adults on one pass for half price. 1 child for half price. Then we would have had to pay full price for the other 2 adult passes (yes, we were viewed as having 4 adults, even though we had 3 children...2 over the age of 12). Fortunately, we have passes to 2 different zoos, Cincinnati and Columbus, so we were able to have all of us get in with half price admissions. We then wondered the whole zoo. We even rode the tram. It seems that to get up to one area of the zoo, you ride a tram, because they close the walkway when there is snow or ice on it. Yep, there was snow! The day was gorgeous. It was a bit chilly, but gorgeous and sunny. We had so much fun wondering around the zoo and it was not crowded at all. Very few people were there on that Tuesday. It seems they also offered the zoo free for all on Thanksgiving day. We also learned that if you live in Cleveland, you prove that you live there and you can get in for free. Nice!

This is a rock in the center of a stream near where my uncle is buried. It is very pretty and restful here. 

This African Elephant had an infection in the area of the one tusk and it had to be removed. He was brought to the zoo from Africa. 

Reindeer. Truth: Females keep their antlers during the winter months. Males shed their antlers. 

Grizzly Bear

Black Bears

Snow Leopard. 

I just liked this plant. 

My oldest loves snakes. 

These birds walked in front of us.