St Louis Zoo, MO – 9/7/2016 – http://fulltimetimeshare.com/blog

September 7, 2016 (Wednesday)

Left after breakfast (around 9:45 AM). It was HOT out, and HUMID! Took us a little over an hour to get to the St. Louis Zoo. The Zoo is free but parking cost $15.00. We decided to go ahead and pay for parking, especially since they had free electric vehicle charging stations (and they even worked). (There are parking spots across from the Zoo that are free but they were all full.)

On our way to the Zoo. This wide load took up two full lanes.

Many bronze animal and people statues here.

The St. Louis Zoo was so much more beautiful and bigger than I had expected. When we got inside and were looking at the map, an employee told us to start at the Red Rock area and then work our way around as that area was the hardest to walk and it was still early and not as hot as it was going to get. Sure felt hot enough to us but we took his suggestion.

We walked up the path towards and saw reptiles (even a 16 foot anaconda), huge tortoises, small turtles, camels, monkeys, birds, gorillas, elephants, rhinos, hippos, zebras, tigers, lions, and a polar bear. We saw so many animals. It’s a lovely zoo and most of the animals looked like they were well taken care of. They had an otter/seal type exhibit where you can walk underneath their swimming area and see them in action from a glass arch you walk under. Very lovely.

Loved the iridescent colors on this constrictor.

Wish the animals could play where the plants are growing.

Two young silverbacks. A lazy day for them.

Note to self, when going to a zoo, bring the long lens. Lion, or lioness.

Fat in the humps for long term survival without food.

Happened to be a Wednesday, we chuckled about hump day. Pretty woman was the photographer and we are working on concentrating on operating the camera and smiling at the same time. This is her 'operating a device" look. — Happened to be a Wednesday, we chuckled about hump day. Pretty woman was the photographer and we are working on concentrating on operating the camera and smiling at the same time. This is her ‘operating a device” look.

Giraffes are handsome and have they're own smell. — Giraffes are handsome and have their own smell.

Wish they had a machine where we could put in a quarter and get a few pellets to throw to them.

Every instinct they have must tell them to hide from us.

Did I mention it was hot? (Around 95 degrees but all humidity!) When we got into the penguin exhibit we both just breathed a sigh of relief as it was 45 degrees inside. Loved it until we got too cold and had to go face the heat again.

Edie thought they were penguin zombies, they just stood there.

The polar bear is spectacular. The fur is so long and waves in the water.

The zoo did put out these monster machines that blew cool water, which was very nice. There were also several water fountains around so you did not get dehydrated. They have a train you can take instead of walking, but it costs something like $15.00 per person. I’m too cheap and we need the exercise. I think the fit bit said we walked something like 8,000 steps today.

There was a wonderful exhibit of works by Robert Bateman, a well known artist that we really like from Victoria, B.C.

Lovely day but we were both drenched in sweat and tired by the time we saw all we wanted. We were determined to see the elephants and made one last big push on yet another path.

Really get a sense of the power of the Rhino with every step.

Really gross and really funny and exactly what I saw in the tank.

I felt bad in that there did not appear to be any shade available to the elephant.

We were pretty happy to see the exit. It was so hot and humid.

We headed off to the St. Louis Galleria Mall to eat linner at the Cheesecake Factory. (Another Cheesecake Factory marked off the list!) Michael got a burrito and I got a salad. Mine was very good, different, but I really enjoyed it. Michael ate his but you could tell he wasn’t wowed by it. Glad we tried different things and will explore more options as we eat our way through more Cheesecake Factories. (We couldn’t eat it all so we boxed it up and will have the leftovers later for dinner.)

Pretty woman wants to eat at every Cheesecake Factory in the world.

My burrito. Had green bell peppers in it and gave it such a odd taste that it missed the mark.

While we were eating, we were told the mall had free wi-fi. After eating we went out into the mall area and Michael worked on the blog. It’s hard when there is no wi-fi nearby where we “live.” The download and upload speeds were a bit higher than at the resort lodge area so he got it done within an hour. The mall was beautiful with fountains and water features, as well as little sitting areas in many different places.

We left at the height of rush hour and the traffic was pretty bad but it kept moving (which we like as long as we’re moving). We got home around 6:00 PM and are tired. That was our day. Hope yours was great!