Winona Trip: Going to the Zoo and Meeting Parker

To kick off our Spring Break, we decided to take a trip to east Texas - to visit Jeremy's parents and to meet baby Parker! We headed down Saturday morning and back home Sunday morning, so we had to pack a lot into our trip! 


We spent most of our time there heading to the Caldwell Zoo in Tyler. I have not been to a zoo since a field trip when I was in elementary school. I will further confess that I didn't expect much of this zoo, thinking it couldn't be as good as a "big city" zoo.



All I have to say is: I was WAY off! This zoo was wonderful! I'm so thoroughly impressed. It wasn't crowded at all - perhaps because rain was coming, and mercifully did not start until we were heading to the car after a great visit! It was so clean, very nice, and had TONS to see! I couldn't get pictures of everything, so note that in addition to what I'm about to post, there were cheetahs, lions, giraffes, penguins, buffalo(s?), flamingos... and even other stuff that I'm just forgetting. Super impressive! 


First of all: how cute (though distant) is this picture of Luke and his daddy? Love my two tall guys. :)

Here's Luke checking out the black bear. WOW! 

Here's a tiger (I apologize for the lackluster picture... you'll note my consistently less-than-stellar photography... in my defense, I was only using my phone, and animals move).

Our next stop was the Wild Bird Walkabout. Sorry to get all street here, but this ess was CRAY*. One, the birds were astonishingly beautiful and colorful. Two, you could pay a dollar for a stick with seeds, and those birds were totally undaunted by you being a human and way bigger than them - they just swooped right in, as Jeremy learned:

After a few minutes of Luke's mesmerized observation, we thought we'd try he and I getting a feeding stick. Luke was pretty tolerant and interested... 

...but, like his father, reached his threshold pretty quickly. (I hate that this picture is so blurry - his little face was hysterical.)

*ess got cray = stuff got crazy. 


Like I said, we saw so much more than what I got pictures of, but here are the elephants. How do you not marvel at these creatures? Astonishing! 

Round about this time, everyone was getting tired, so we hit the road, got some dinner, and headed to see the newest family member, little baby Parker! Isn't he precious? (He is the son of Jeremy's nephew, Brent. Does that make him our nephew? Great nephew? If you know for sure, please comment!)

We had a great time, and it was a wonderful way to kick off our Spring Break!