Florida - Friday (Miami Zoo)

On Friday, we had to leave the Keys to drive back to Fort Lauderdale.  After an early morning swim in the kiddie pool, we packed up all our stuff and got back in the car.  As we left Highway 1 in Homestead, I saw a sign for a Krispy Kreme, and told Ben that we needed to stop for a vacation treat.  We decided that as long as the "Hot Now" sign was on, we would stop.  Lucky for us, it was on!  Amelia was content to stand at the window and watch the doughnuts getting made, but Megan kept pointing to the doughnuts and then to her mouth.  She was anxious to eat them!  Everyone enjoyed our hot fresh doughnuts!

Next we stopped at the Miami Zoo.  The girls loved the animal statues at the entrance - they had to climb on every single one.  I think this might have been their favorite part of the zoo.  Here's Megan riding an agouti, Amelia riding a hippo, Amelia balancing on the head of a snake, Megan perched on a crocodile, and a hippo eating Mommy's head!

We saw some real animals, too, including monkeys, giraffes, stingrays, Malayan sun bear, alligator, gorilla, hippos, jaguar and zebras.

We really liked seeing the lions!  The female lion was sitting right by the window, so the girls got to see her really close up.  We didn't get a photo of this, unfortunately, but at one point, Amelia was standing with her back to the window, and the lion jumped up right behind her like she was going to pounce.  Amelia had no idea what was going on, but Megan thought it was great!

Megan's favorite animals seemed to be the snakes:

Amelia got to feed the giraffe some lettuce.  She really liked getting to interact with the giraffe, and wasn't afraid at all.  She said his big long tongue tickled her.

By that time, Megan had fallen asleep.  It was so hot and sunny, and we were there into the afternoon, so she just conked out in her stroller.  Isn't she precious?

We rode the monorail to get around the zoo.  The girls loved riding the train, although Amelia had to ask at least 27 times "Why is it called a monorail?"  I wouldn't recommend the monorail to anyone who might be visiting the zoo, because the schedule wasn't organized.  There is only one train, and it takes about 25 minutes to get around the entire zoo, but the operators can't tell you when the next one is going to come, so unless you want to wait at the station for 25 minutes, you will likely end up missing it.  Instead, the zoo had these really fun bicycle cars that would fit 2 adults and 3 kids.  Next time, I would try one of those instead!

 

And what would a trip to the zoo be without a photo of a child in an animal cutout?  Here's the funniest one I've ever seen - Amelia the sad-faced cockroach!