The Indianapolis Zoo

The last full day of our vacation in Indiana, Rachel, Dale, and I decided to take the kids to the zoo. We had actually planned to take them on several other occasions during the trip, but something always seemed to delay the outing.

We delayed so long that the only day left for us to go was a bleak, chilly, rainy, dreary day ... but we didn't let that stop us! We arrived 45 minutes after the zoo opened and had "pole position" parking. (Thanks to Uncle Rob and Aunt Laura for letting us borrow their car ... we wouldn't have been able to transport all the kids without it!)


Because it was such a dreary day, the zoo was almost deserted and we were able to get so close to the animals. Also, Adelaida was able to walk at her own pace, often quite far behind us or ahead of us, and we could keep her in sight easily so she didn't have to stay right next to us the entire time.

We saw some fun animals, including white-handed gibbons, brown bears, rhinoceroses, and bongos (reddish-orange antelopes with vertical white stripes), as well as several other animals.





Dale and Adelaida fed the giraffes together, as did Rachel and Simon.



We had a great time and had just gotten to the elephant exhibit (with a very young baby African elephant!) when the skies opened up and it started pouring on us! We quickly ran to a relatively sheltered spot, pulled out our coats and covered the babies as well as we could, and ran the length of the zoo back toward the entrance. Despite the rain at the end, it was a perfect trip to the zoo. I look forward to taking the kids to the Indianapolis zoo again soon!