August Adventure #2

We are in a recovery day from our second August Adventure! And you guys, this was the big one. The highlight of our summer if you will. We went to the Indianapolis Zoo.

Now, I know what you're thinking. "Um, a zoo. So what? In Indiana of all places."

But did you know that in the United States there are only 19 Walrus in captivity? And primarily in coastal places like Washington, California, New York, Texas and Florida? (Those in fact are the locations of the Walrus in the United States.) With the exception of Indianapolis.

And my boy loves walrus.

It is such a unique love he has for the walrus that is really complicated as a parent. The walrus is not what you would call popular. If he liked sharks or penguins or trains (he does, just not as much as walrus) that would be easy to find books, movies and merchandise.

He has a stuffed walrus that is very important for sleeping. In fact, when it is bedtime, a certain toddler yells up the stairs "Walrus, I need you!" It's pretty cute.

So anyway, in my walrus research it was determined that Indianapolis has two walrus, Pakak and Aurora. Pakak of YouTube fame. (He was rescued by the Alaska SeaLife Center and there is many a video available on him. Trust me.) And fun fact: Indianapolis is only 4.5 hours away from us.

So we went on a trip. We planned. We packed. We left on Saturday.

A monsoon tried to stop us from reaching our destination but we prevailed.

We checked into our hotel room which was nicer than anticipated and we headed off to the pool. The time zone change threw me off, I realistically knew that we'd switch time zones but it didn't really occur to me that time was different until we were at the hotel. The pool was very fun. Tick Tock Croc came with us to swim. I just supervised.

Because the monsoon caught up to us we decided not to go out for dinner. This was a good plan, as C had been very good in the car and we thought expecting him to be very good at a restaurant might be stretching it. So by ordering a local establishment's pizza (we love trying local pizzas) he was able to eat and stand and jump around to his heart's content.

Sleep time did not go as well as anticipated but we did all eventually get some sleep.

We woke up bright and early, ate our continental breakfast. I had a waffle coincidentally on what I would find out later was National Waffle Day and we packed up. Google took us through the ghetto. And the longest red life of my life. 4 minutes later, contemplating just going because we could have many many times it finally turned green, we made it out of ghetto and to the zoo!!

I had read that their brand new orangutan exhibit was very popular so we did that right away before the zoo got too crowded. It was a good choice on our part. C told each and every orangutan how they were "cute" and got a lot of face to face time with them.

I went to the other side of the exhibit to get this picture. I was standing with a lot of grumbling senior citizens about how the orangutans wouldn't come over to their identical window area. The zoo employee told them that they apparently love kids "the smaller the better." Ah well, my dude got a good long look and was very excited. 

Another part of the zoo that I really enjoyed was the dolphin show. I love dolphins. When the Minnesota Zoo still had dolphins I knew all their names, could identify them and their histories. I was not disappointed with the dolphins in Indianapolis. It was a beautiful dolphin arena. When we walked in with our tickets the song playing was "Mmmbop" which if you are a frequent visitor you know is my jam. The rest of the soundtrack in the arena pretty much came straight from my iPod. (Enya, Counting Crows, Hanson, Backstreet Boys, Colbie Caillat etc.)

Watching the Dolphin Show with Mom

The dolphin show.

We went to the "main event" 3 different times and these pictures represent the best of all 3 visits. The exhibit starts with the underground viewing area and moves up to the above ground view. When you first walk down the ramp there is a walrus art piece. This was almost as popular as the real walrus because C is pretty tactile and enjoyed touching and playing with it. 

We of course had him wear his walrus shirt to see the walrus.
It's his favorite shirt and he wears it at least once a week anyhow.

He kept saying "Oh Walrus!" 

Next to the art piece of fun are 4 windows to watch the walrus swim. We of course made no use of the 5 rows of stadium seating to watch we were right up in the windows every time. It was very very hot and humid yesterday and that was unfortunate. The viewing area of the exhibit was not climate controlled but obviously the walrus water was so the windows were very foggy and had a lot of condensation. It did not deter us from enjoying the swimming but it would have been nice to sit together and watch from the seats for a while. (which would have been hard yesterday)

We were the walrus champions of the zoo yesterday. Most groups came through, spent about 30 seconds and said something like "They're so big." Or "A Walrus." Parents would tell their toddlers "That's a walrus swimming." And then they'd move on. We spent a great deal of time with the walrus. Which was just fine by us since that is the reason we made the trek in the first place. 

The above ground area was nice too. It was very much a look down at the walrus view but C liked it too. We spent a lot of time up there as well. 

By the sign. I really wanted to get a picture of C, his walrus shirt and the walrus but it wasn't meant to be. 

Watching the walrus being trained and going splash with Mom. 

Playing with our small walrus and watching walrus. 

This shows kind of a good view of the whole exhibit and the walrus being trained.
Not the same visit to the exhibit as the other trainer up there. :) 

He had a blast. I mean, the tigers, giraffes, elephants and such were fun too. But not as great as the walrus. The one thing I will say negatively about the experience was that for having 2 of only 19 walrus in the country their walrus merchandise was lacking. They had, get this, the exact same plush walrus who was waiting in the car for us. (Though let's be honest, C would have had another one.) And a set of ocean animal figures that included a walrus. Those were the choices. As it happens, C is very much into animal figures right now so the pack of animals is a huge hit, but I was hoping for a shirt or something. Oh well. 

After a fun filled 5.5 hours at the zoo in which we accomplished everything except the splash pad. (We offered, he opted to go to the walrus instead.) And we decided that it was hot and crowded and we had a decent drive ahead of us. So we headed out to our car and started the journey home. 

We are happy C is happy and thrilled we were able to swing seeing a walrus even though we don't live on the coast. We're very lucky! I was thrilled to have even a mini-vacation with no obligations to anyone but my guys. We had a very good time and have spent all day playing walrus and with our new sea animals. Pretty great stuff!