Dinosaurs at the zoo!

First, one note: tomorrow is Maisie's last day of Kindergarten. OMG! So if you see me, I might be a big weepy about it. Be nice to me... and tell her congratulations!

Last Saturday, the girls and I headed down to the Minnesota Zoo. There are two new exhibits there for the summer! One has African animals, and the other has dinosaurs. Yes, dinosaurs at the Zoo! Just animatronic... this isn't a Jurassic Park situation.

If you haven't ever been to the Minnesota Zoo, let me take a second to explain its layout. There's one main building that has customer service/ticketing, a cafeteria, and the gift shop, and several indoor exhibits: Discovery Bay, the Tropics Trail, the penguins, and the Minnesota Trail are all in the same building. Then outside, there's a main plaza with a fountain/splash pad and a lot of trails with outdoor exhibits. Russia's Grizzly Coast, the Northern Trail, and the Family Farm are all outside. Dinosaurs and the African animals exhibits are outside, along the Northern Trail.

We had sunscreen, sunhats, and were ready to walk the trails to get to Africa and to see dinosaurs. Sadly, there were other plans for us! When we got to the zoo, we were told that a bison had escaped its enclosure, so nobody could go outside until it was recaptured. WHAT!

So, instead we spent the morning doing activities to help Maisie earn her Girl Scouts Minnesota Zoo badge. Ella was not exactly pleased about this arrangement.

But, what can you do.

Eventually we did all Maisie's activities (How many species of frogs are in Minnesota? What are three bird on the tropics trail? Draw your favorite fish on the coral reef. Draw a food chain of animals you see on the Minnesota trail.) and got the all-clear to head outside. FINALLY! We were off to see the dinosaurs!!

This is a dimetrodon. I don't know why, but I think its fossil looks much scarier than the robot version. Maybe because you can see the teeth so much more clearly? Or maybe it's the freaky spines... hard to say.

Either way, I'm glad we don't have to worry about running across one of these in the wild.

By the time we got through dinosaurs and the African exhibit (not as great as advertised - one giraffe and a bunch of ostriches was really all we saw), the girls were hot and tired. Fortunately, we went through the central plaza with its splash pad/fountain on the way back. They were ready to cool off and weren't going to be stopped by not having brought swimsuits!

A quick pose on the wolf statutes on the way out...

 capped off a great day at the Minnesota Zoo!