An Inside Look at the Zoo

Eliza and I finally went to do our special tour of the zoo!  We won the Inside Look Tour for two back in April when I took THIS picture of Eliza and the baby hippo.  We scheduled for the first tour this morning at 10am, and really lucked out, when we found out nobody else scheduled at that time.  So not only were we there for a "behind the scenes" tour, but it turned out to be our own private tour as well.  Our guide, Stacy, was great!  We started in the back area of the Koala exhibit.  It felt weird going into the "Authorized Personnel Only" areas, but was so cool.

We were very close to this Koala, and he even came out from behind the leaves to have a look at us.  One of the keepers was there to give him fresh leaves, so he was moving all around, and eating while we were there too.

We drove around through the Urban Jungle and saw one of the young giraffes nursing, said hello to a new emu in the area, and watched one of the cheetahs and her dog companion.  Then we headed over to the camels.  Again, we went into a "restricted" area and grabbed a bucket of celery.  We met this nearly 2000 lb male camel named Mongo.  Eliza was happy to see him, and pet him (just above the nose), but didn't want to feed him.  I was happy to give it a try though.

Eliza took this picture.  I fed him the celery, but was too quick, so she just got Mongo with the celery between his lips.

Next we hopped back on the cart, and went through the "cart/bus only" path through Elephant Odyssey.  We have been through here before on the Bus Tour, but its still nice.  We checked out the pandas before heading up to see the hippo.

This was probably my favorite part.  We weren't able to feed him for zoo insurance reasons, but we got to see Stacy feed him a few apples.  We were super close too!  He came right over to the bars when he saw us come in with the apples.  He opened his big mouth, and she just tossed them right in.  He walked away afterward, but came back a few times hoping for more.  I think my bright red camera caught his eye - he thought it was more apples - and he kept opening his mouth and waiting for me to toss it in.

Stacy took this picture through the bars for me - we had to stay behind a yellow line a couple feet back from the bars.

This is how close we were!  Eliza was a little nervous to turn her back on him when he was right there at the bars, but she was smiling the rest of the time.

I was just in awe standing there.

It was an amazing experience and I'm so glad we were able to do it.