Tampa Zoo FUN!

Jeff and Jan, our gracious hosts, have been to the Tampa zoo a million times.  Today they not only took us there, but used their passes to get us in to the zoo in an affordable fashion.  Wendy took the camera and Jan and I were ready to go!

One of the things that was very cool about this zoo was the number of birds.  There were many habitats we could walk into and watch the birds in flight and nesting.  We’ve seen several of these birds in Florida in the “wild,” so it is fun to see them up close like this.

Last night we went to a local cemetary where there is a Bald Eagle’s nest.  It was pretty cool.  Today we saw some more at the zoo.  They are pretty amazing creatures.

There were also some rediculously amazing birds I had never seen before:

And other animals so cute it was hard to believe:

But one of the coolest things at the zoo was a tank of sting-rays.  There was food for sale and you were invited to put your hands in the pool and touch/pet the fish.  They feel exactly like you think they would, and they were highly trained to come to people because they get fed so much.  It was cool.

Tomorrow, real life begins again.  we have most of the day here, and we plan to go parasailing in the morning.  I hope our flights are on time, that Jan is happy (it is supposed to happen at his meal-time), and that we get all our luggage home.  After the disaster of getting here I hope the flight home is smoother.  But really, we’ve had a week of near perfect weather (I’m in shorts on the patio typing this at 9:30 pm, hard to beat) and wonderfully beautiful experiences, I’m more patient now then I was coming here.

It is different to have a child and vacation like this – even though I know Jan is too young to remember this, I find myself wondering a lot about how this will impact him, what he’ll remember next week, and how happy his days have been.  Mostly he’s been great, but tonight’s dinner was nearly disastrous (just Jan being a normal baby) and he’s had to be patient beyond measure – today at the zoo he was in the bjorn all day (thanks to my sister Julie for giving us that!!) and then he was in the car seat for an hour afterward.  So he’s not felt the same thrill and release I have, and he was fussy at dinner.  We stayed home and played with him tonight, and he is happy again.  We’ll get better at this, I hope, and figure out how to make it really special for him too.

Have a good night, I will.  Jeff and I will be having a cigar when he gets home from the baseball game.