Tuesday, May 27, 2003
Memorial Day
We took Parker to the Jacksonville Zoo. On the trip, Parker ate an entire hamburger, a feat never before accomplished. After a bried roadside stop to save an itinerant frog that had attached itself to the side mirror, we made good time to Jax.
As a zoo, they have some things to work on - the aviary has a problem with rats, and flocks of pigeons are wreaking some havoc over on the African plains. For the most part, Parker was indifferent to a lot of the animals - the hot wheather an general lackadaisacal attitude of the animals probably didn't help. However, we did go crazy over the elephants, and the birds, and the jaguar, and the gorilla. His favorite animal was the siamang, whose lively acrobatic swings and leaps must have been the template for the cgi programmers of Spider-Man. He got a little firghtened in the last aviary, which was both Kristin and I's favorite exhibit; for $1.00 you can feed the birds inside nectar, which causes them to swarm you and land on your arms, your head, your shoulder. They then proceed to try and take everything that isn't nailed down - glasses, hari clips, backpack straps. It was a little loud and crazy, and Parker got a little disconcerted.
On the way out, we came across a snake running across the sidewalk. Its a lot of fun when the local nature tries to compete.
Afterwards we went to Grandma's and spent the evening with her and Aunt Margie. Parker was bowled over by Gracie, grandma's Boston Terrier, who he played ball with incessantly. Nevertheless, we are still NOT getting a dog.
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