Lions and Tigers and Alligators, Oh My!

A very sweet lady in our church gave us the heads-up on a promotion a local radio station was having for entry into the Naples Zoo today. Mike was able to get coupons for our family to visit the zoo FREE! I like free in the present economy! In order to get free entry, you had to be at the zoo between 8 a.m. and 10 a.m.

Well we got off later than we intended and had to stop for gas. By our clock in the car, we were parking at 10:03, so I just knew we had missed out on the free entry and would have to pay. We got everybody out of the car and headed toward the entrance and the radio guys out front waved us on in and said, "Yeah! You are our last family we are letting in free this morning!"

It was like a thousand degrees HOT! But we had a very good time. We got everybody in and lathered down with sunscreen and began our way through the zoo.

This was our first site....

the turtles. We didn't stay long here because it smelled soooo bad! It was the sulfur, I guess.

A little ways further, we stopped for this photo opportunity....
As you can tell, Bentley is already hot. We had already passed by a playground and he had his heart set on playing, but we convinced him to continue on and see the animals.

He was glad he did, because this...
was our next stop... the lions! It was like they were posing for the camera. And we got to hear a few roars.

Next stop was the monkeys.
If you look to the top left hand corner, you can see two black monkeys. They were fighting and trying to whack each other.

We saw Zebras next.
The sign said they were "fighting zebras". Never heard of such!

This is a "black panther", which we found out there is no such thing. This is actually a leopard with his "black coat". There actually is no black Florida panther.
This is a spotted leopard. They were in the same area together.

This was one of the many stops we had to make to sit down and rest a minute. Like I said, it was a thousand degrees! JennaBeth was soak and wet at this point with sweat from riding in her stroller.

The gazelles were fun to watch.

These were really pretty birds, McCaws I believe. I may not have the spelling right on that. We watched them have some lunch.

I missed this next part, because JennaBeth let us know she had had enough of the stroller and was hungry. So while I found a shelter to change and feed her, Mike, Cecily and Bentley got to see this....

alligator feeding time! Now, I absolutely would not want this guy's job.

Next to the shelter where I was feeding JennaBeth, there was a play area. Bentley was surely in his element there. Cecily was watching him and got some really good pictures of him playing.



Before we left we took a few pics with the "tiger".


We have been seeing Kentucky Fried Chicken's commercial for their grilled chicken and $5 fill-up boxes, so that was our last stop before leaving Naples.

Here is Bentley eating his chicken leg and corn on the cob.

After racing to get there on time, we enjoyed our day together and have spent the rest of the evening relaxing at home.

We are giving JennaBeth rice cereal for the first time tonight for supper, so we'll see how that goes. And yes, there will be pictures!

Good night and have a blessed day of worship tomorrow!

Jennifer