Outdoor Freezer - with Animals!

Sunny and 40 degrees? Sounds like a great day for the zoo! Okay, so we were feeling a little stir crazy. And Kai had a friend over, which meant THREE kids cooped up indoors with far too much three day weekend energy. Scott had to work, so I took the kids and drove to Philly.

We discovered that less animals are in their enclosures, but the animals that are out are very active. There's also a lot less pushing at the indoor exhibits because there's so few tourists. We got to take nice long looks at all of the critters in the reptile/amphibian house.

This snake always reminds me of the one in Jungle Book.

And this turtle is a favorite, although he always seems too big for his pond.

I know that they say never smile at a crocodile, but how can you help smiling back at this guy?

This guy looks at home in the snow. Kairi decided he must be related to Daddy because it's one of the "Scott - ish" Highland Cattle.

The gorilla always looks so sad. He has a big outdoor enclosure, but all of the monkeys were inside, naturally.

I mean, what crazy creatures would choose to be out when the swan boat pond is frozen over?

Clearly, the tigers. They LOVED the snow by all appearances and were having a grand old time.

It's a little bit scary how shredded that tire is. BIG claws!

And here's all three of the "teenage" tigers in one shot. Their mom was sleeping over by the wall - can't blame her!

Then our visit got really cool. Turns out today was Open House for certain levels of members, and we qualified! So we got to go into the keeper area of Big Cat Falls and see the animals in their holding cages and talk to the keepers. We saw this Amur leopard, one of two who are kept on opposite ends of the zoo. They're sadly really endangered.

Then we saw this leopard gnawing away at a bone. He does actually have spots in the sunlight - black spots on black because he has an excess of melatonin. It's apparently pretty rare.

As we were exiting, we went past the cages for the pumas. Love the sign: Danger - Cat in Yard... yeah, you think???

But this one doesn't look so dangerous, all curled up in the sun!

We had to try out the zoo's newest attraction, the amazon rainforest carousel!

Who is surprised Kairi rode on a frog? Not me!

Kaitlyn chose a leopard.

Nick went for a panther - unless that's a leopard, too, like the one in the holding pen.

Then we headed past the cheetahs...

...after a brief photographic pause...

...to the giraffe barn! Apparently, these guys aren't allowed out unless it's 50 degrees or warmer outside, so they were staying snug. This one is called Gus.

Of course, Nicky was most excited by going into the keeper area at Carnivore Kingdom, where the snow leopard and his favorite Amur leopard hang out. That's Nicky's jacket in the foreground. He was really excited to be so close to the leopard (it was a matter of inches).

Here's one inhabitant who seemed to be enjoying the weather - he probably wouldn't have minded if the temps had dropped even more!

And it wouldn't be a zoo visit without a trip to see Krepke, Nick's favorite Amur. Of course, we didn't know that was his name before we talked to his keepers today. We definitely got a different (and much colder) perspective of the zoo today!