Cameron Park Zoo 4.23.13

After hearing loads of praise about it, we finally made it up to the Cameron Park Zoo in Waco. It was definitely worth the extra few minutes of driving. It had a different feel to it than most city zoos - it was lush and felt smaller than it was - which lent to a more up close animal experience... no I'm not getting paid for my advertisement. It really was a cool place, one we'll be taking the extended family to.

The boys upon arrival.

In the middle of the zoo there is a large children's play area that included a big tree house, slide, splash pad area (for warmer weather) and this large snake...

Despite what it looked like, the slide moved so slow the boys had to scooch along.

He was actually not moving for this photo.

Two turkeys bird watching.

Inside the snake den.

The giraffe enclosure was one of many that made it feel like we were in there with them. There were barricades, obviously, but they were not visually obstructing and the overall lack of concrete made it actually feel like we were looking at natural animals, vs. large depressed pets.

This boardwalk snaked around the giraffe enclosure, there were some sort of small deer creatures in the pen below. It was a down slope, which meant the boys needed to run.

We were also impressed with the aquarium building, everything but the weird smell. :)

This guy turned out to be quite a ham (see video below).

One of the highlights was the slide that went down through the otter enclosure. 

Aaron in the slide tube, otter on the top. The otters just spread out on top of the slide and played around.

Aaron.

Adam.

Hey, it's mama. What can I say, I had to escort Adam down the first time because he was scarred.

Back to the giraffes, it won't let me reorder the photos. Grr.

Talking to a turtle.

Checking out the tiny deer.

This large male lion was fairly worked up. He paced back and forth the entire time we stood there. Something had him going.

So only a (very thick) window width away from a grumpy lion.

A boardwalk through a bamboo forest led to the tigers.

Tiger enclosure (see below video for actual tigers :) There were four adolescent, playful tigers in there who kept our attention for quite a while.

I'm not sure what spawned such a look.

Komodo Dragon.

Here's a few video clips from our morning at the Zoo....