After some last minute discussions and schedule shuffling, we decided to go to the Louisville Zoo. Silly me, I thought the zoo would be fairly desserted since school is out. I figured there wouldn't be hordes of children on fieldtrips, just individual family groupings so I naively said we should meet at the zoo entrance. Ha! Every daycare and summer camp must have chosen that particular Tuesday to go to the zoo. I think we did all end up finding one another, but it was nothing if not chaotic.

The other things that became obvious quickly were that: 1. It's hard to do the zoo in a group because every family has a different way of doing it - different favorite animals, different activities, etc. 2. The zoo is much more than a zoo now. It's almost become an amusement park. With the Splash Park at Glacier Run, several playgrounds, the train (not running at the time due to the recent derailing), the carousel, and the new Sky Trail High Advednture Course, you really could spend the entire day at the zoo. Heck, you could spend an entire weekend. 

However, your zoo membership or entrance ticket doesn't provide entry to some of these activities. For example, the Sky Trail is $7 a person and seems suitable for older children, teens and adults. But there are still lots of free activities and events. In fact, we met one of our friends and children midway through the zoo. She decided to go earlier instead of meeting us at the entrance so the kids could see the Tiger Training at 10:45. She said the female tiger was being trained that day and that the female is particularly grouchy so she puts on a good show by growling a lot. A list of other times for that event and others like it is here: http://www.louisvillezoo.org/info/funthings.htm

From the entrance, we took the right trail - taking us counter-clockwise around the zoo. Since the big train wasn't running, we stopped at the children's train garden, but the little trains were inexplicably turned off as well. The kids took turns riding on the komodo dragon instead.

 We next visited the indoor Islands exhibit where we could see a real komodo dragon and my penguin-obsessed daughter got her fix. It was a hot day and the kids were already hungry and tired so we headed to some picnic tables near the Billabong Playabout. 

After lunch, some kids decided they'd rather go splash in the nearby Splash Park, while the rest of us went to play at the playground near the gorillas. We were actually picnicking right next to a playground, but sadly there's no shade at all at that playground. The equipment gets very hot and it's just not nearly as much fun as the shadier playground near the gorillas. 

We played for a while, then walked through the rest of the zoo toward the entrance. We stopped to look at the new baby giraffe, Bakari, baby Scotty, the elephant, and to take a carousel ride (1.50 per person).

If you go: Right now there's quite a bit of construction going on outside the zoo on Trevillian Way where they're creating a new entrance to the parking lot. Inside the zoo, you take a fairly dramatic detour around the construction of the rest of Glacier Run.

The food is abysmal, so make sure to pack snacks & a lunch. If you're a vegetarian, pretty much your only options are french fries or some cheese pizza that has probably aged a bit too long. On a hot day like Tuesday, the ice cream and Dippin' Dots sure looked nice, but they're also expensive. If you take a water bottle, the word is that they'll fill it for you, but I haven't tried it yet.