Roo Zoo

The next morning, we went to Roo Zoo! It's a small zoo, probably only a few acres, but it's interactive and you get to pet almost all of the animals. How AWESOME is that??? It was SERIOUSLY THE COOLEST ZOO EVER!

This one is a coati. We thought he looked like an anteater, but apparently he's a member of the racoon family.

Did you know...the six banded armadillo is the only armadillo that can roll itself into a complete ball?

Addie LOVED the monkeys...or really anything that resembled a monkey. She kept squealing and giggle and saying monkey! This little guy made friends with Wil and Addie right away!

Addie called this guy kitty cat...or dog she couldn't decide which fit better. Wil and I thought he looked like a mountain lion, so naturally, we encouraged our child to walk right up and pet him! And then we remembered to ask what he was. :-) It turns out he is a Caracal. It's a desert lynx found commonly in Asia and Africa.

The lemur was by far my FAVORITE! His paws felt like really soft leather - something I was definitely not expecting! And he just climbed up and all over you as he pleased!

Have you ever tried to get a picture of an almost two year old and an animal looking at the camera at the same time...or even visible at the same time? It's not an easy task! We gave up on asking her to smile, too!

Shortly after I took this picture of Wil and the lemur, the monkey from earlier came inside, hopped onto Wil's back too, and promptly got in a fight with the lemur. Apparently the two are cage mates, but they didn't want to share one set of shoulders. The handlers took both animals back and the lemur then pooped all over the lady from the zoo. Wil dodged a bullet on that one!

The bearcat was Wil's favorite! It's about the size of a small bear or small bear cub, but it looks a little more like a cat, so they call it a bearcat. It's actually not in the bear or the cat family...but I can't remember exactly what type of animal it is.

The other interesting thing about the bearcat is that it smells like Fritos. Apparently that's how they attract their mates, but if you pet him and then smell your hand, it smells exactly like you've been eating Fritos!

We took a couple of special tours since we were there and wanted to full Roo Zoo experience. The first one was to play with the sea otters! How COOL is that??? How many people can say they've gotten to play with sea otters???

This is a curious otter trying to go up my jacket!

Addie and me with the otter...Addie thought this little guy was fun, but she got a bit nervous when he got to close!

Wil and Addie with the sea otter. One of them actually went down the front of another lady's shirt on the tour. All you could see was the tip of his tail sticking out...I'll bet that felt WEIRD!

Addie and me petting an otter - it was super windy that day!

We also took a special kangaroo tour. This is one of the kangaroos with a young joey in her pouch. Did you know...the female kangaroo is only pregnant for about 30 days? It then gives birth to a joey the size of a jelly bean. The joey crawls up her tail and into the pouch where it will stay for many months.

We also learned, kangaroos only have one joey at a time, because there's only enough room in the pouch for one. However, if mom has an older baby that's been kicked out of the pouch but is still nursing, she can create two completely different milk streams. The babies have different nutritional needs, so they each get their own.

This was one of the male kangaroos - they are WAY bigger than the females. We had to stay along the perimeter of the cage because kangaroos are kind of jumpy (pun intended, ha ha ha). Apparently, they've been known to jump straight into a fence and break their neck trying to get away at other zoos. Since we were on the perimeter, they always had a place to run - that didn't kill them. 

I think Addie liked the albino kangaroo the best. This one was the most willing to let her pet him!

If you are ever in the wild and need to catch a kangaroo, you should grab them by the tail. Their tails are so tough you won't hurt the kangaroo that way. Also, kangaroos balance on their tails when they kick...if you grab it's tail it can't kick you!

This is the sloth. It was too cold for him to come outside, so we reached in to pet him. 

There were also snakes, some pigs, a zebra, a camel, and lots of other animals that we didn't get pictures with. They had a toucan that Wil was going to take Addie to see, while I bravely took their picture. But Wil gave up because Addie was as scared of the bird as I was. I really do try not to let her see that birds make me nervous so she won't grow up with my fear...apparently, I need to do a better job!

The zoo was my favorite part of the trip, although the entire trip was wonderful. I wish it was closer so we could go back more often!