Our Adventure to the Zoo

I decided to bite the bullet and take the kids and a couple of their friends to Boston's Franklin Park Zoo yesterday.....wait for it........ by myself. I made the arrangements, packed a cooler and some lunch stuff, printed off a mapquest, and off I went into the big, wide world just me and 5 kids. I wanted a day of adventure and well, that is exactly what I got.
All was going according to plan until my mapquest directions landed me smack in the middle of downtown Boston. I kept looking at my driving directions, looking at the skyscrapers, rechecking my directions, wondering how a zoo could be in the middle of so much cement and traffic, and then it happened I realized I was lost. I was not even close to the zoo. I was right at Boston Common. Mercy. It was indeed like a zoo complete with people dressed in colonial clothes, a gazillion one-way streets, lots of traffic (cars and pedestrians alike), and that was certainly not my intended destination.
In comes Bill to the rescue. I called him, like I always do in a situation like this, and told him my situation and my location. He said he would call me back. Well, by the time he called back I was on the move again. In my own defense, I was illegally parked on a little narrow one-way street and let's just say a few vehicles (including one very large bus) didn't appreciate that so much. A flustered Bill told me I MUST find a place to park so he could pinpoint my location and them navigate me to the zoo. "No problem, honey. I'll just parallel park in one the many spaces I see available in downtown Boston!!!!" LOL. All is well that ends well, and he gave me directions quickly (his cell phone was dying), and I scribbled them down a paper. That was it. I was on my own again, but we made it!!!! Finally. (BTW, Driving in Boston wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. It just helps to know where you are, and how to get to where you need to be. I actually love a big city every once in a while!)
The zoo was great. The exhibits were well designed so that the animals were visible. We all had a great time. One funny thing during our visit was our experience with the gorillas. As you will see in some the pics the gorillas and humans are separated by a plexiglas wall. One gorilla even came over with his blankie and provided a nice photo op for us. How considerate! One mother near us was extremely nervous that the gorilla was so close and even warned me that these animals are well known for smacking the plexiglas when they get annoyed. Well, this gorilla was docile and half asleep, and I thought the woman was paranoid and half crazy.
Then, as we are moving to another window to see the other two gorillas, I saw out of the corner of my eye a gorilla running straight at the plexiglas. Then there was a LOUD boom as that gorilla indeed smacked the plexiglas. The crowd screamed, my kids were scared, and then once everyone realized that no real harm was done everyone started laughing and talking excitedly about what had just happened. I had to do some smooth talking to a couple of the kids to reassure them that the gorilla was still in the cage and no one had been harmed. Crazy. I can't say I blame the gorillas. I wouldn't want someone staring at me 24/7.
The other bit of news is that the zoo is the set for a new movie, "The Zookeeper", starring Kevin James (Paul Blart: Mall Cop). A fairly large section of the zoo was blocked off and closed to the public. The kids are very excited for this movie to be released in 2010 after seeing the backside of the set and other movie stuff. It sounds like it will be a movie the kids can see. The basic plot is that Kevin James' character, Andrew, a likable and awkward guy who doesn't quite fit in plans to leave his job at the zoo, but the animals reveal their ability to speak to Andrew and try to persuade him to stay. Sounds good to me! The kids should like that, and I really like Kevin James. Can't wait to see it next year sometime!