St. Louis Zoo

We woke up to a great breakfast from Mike and headed to the zoo.  He gave us directions for free parking but we weren't early enough for  a Sunday and all the street parking was taken.  No biggie considering it was a free zoo anyway.  We had seen the zoo from the highway the day before.  They have a cool sign out front.

I had talked to someone that had said it was a small zoo and that we could walk through it in two hours.  I would have to disagree that it is small.  It was plenty big and took us until closing time to finish it all - 6 hours.  I guess that we tend to spend more time at the zoo than most people.The parking attendant told us to find the big elephant and that was the entrance.   There were also a number of other sculptures there.  It looked pretty cool.  We parked in the dragonfly section.
This Aldabra tortoise rivals the Galapagos tortoises in size.  There were a bunch of them sharing the habitat.  One was tiny and was assumed to be young.  Although for a tortoise who knows what that means.  Dayne took this picture of an adult.
The reptile house was the first stop.  We spent a lot of time there.  Lots of snakes and lizards - like the above Caimans.  It was a nicely laid out building  with a lifelike centerpiece of with live turtles and fish.It is always nice to see new creatures like the above Banteng.  When born he is red and then later deevelops the white butt and lower legs.  I've never heard of him before let alone seen one.  There were a number of gazelle-like creatures we had never seen before as well.Always a favorite in this household are the bears.   The one grizzly was just laying around but the one in the front of Dayne's picture was walking around for us.  Being grizzlies - and not coastal brown bears - they weren't huge.  But I still love them.
There was a nice penguin exhibit.  We were able to get nice and close.  Dayne said it was the closest he had ever been to a penguin before.  His picture of this one shows him laying there and opening and closing his mouth.  There was an exhibit inside but there was a long line which we weren't interested in.  We also missed the stingrays and sharks because it looked like a 30 minutes line.  No thanks, been there done that.This camel was funny because of the way his 2 humps flopped to different sides.  And I know I've given this quiz before so I will spare you - it is a Bactrian camel.I was impressed by the lunch cafe we ate at.  It is always hit or miss at a place like a zoo.  We ate on a patio overlooking a pond with tons of ducks.  One even had a limp which Evan made sure we pointed out to a staff member.
There is place called the River's Edge which is a nice trail through realistic forest conditions.  The only trouble was a lot of the animals were not cooperating.  We missed the bushdog and the rhino and others.  We learned that the bushdog likes to hunt giant anteaters and capybaras.  Not by coincidence they were in the pen right next door.  I thought that was a bit mean to be honest.  It would drive them nuts to be that close.  I would recommend the St. Louis zoo to anyone.  And since it is free you can keep coming back.