Travel: Zoo Atlanta – A Pretty Happy Home

The great thing about moving to a different area is that everything is NEW and EXCITING! Especially if you are 4 and 7 years old. On our bucket list was, of course, visiting the Atlanta Zoo!

So, off we trotted one morning last week. Zoo Atlanta is located in Grant Park and we ended up parking on the far side of Grant Park and then walking through the park to the zoo entrance.

The zoo is much more compact than others I have visited, such as the Portland Zoo. I’m attributing this to smaller, daytime viewing areas for the animals to roam in, but that was just my impression. The good thing about this is that almost all of the animals were close enough to see.

This elephant was covered in some sort of red dust from the soil…it was a little strange to see.

This is the moment when Annika spotted the black rhino. That was pretty cool.

Tor finally saw the rhino too. Was I taking pictures of the animals? Nope. It was far more interesting to capture their little mesmerized faces. And that surfer boy hair… I don’t have the heart to cut it too short!

What were the kids’ favorite animals? The lions? Giraffes? Any other exotic animal?

Nope. Of course not.

They loved the… wait for it, wait for it… the naked mole rats. RATS.

And no, I don’t have any pictures because it was dark and creepy inside of the naked mole rat exhibit. However, they did have cool tunnels for the kids to crawl through while they pretended to be rats. There was also a fun playground outside of the exhibit for more rat-tastic fun.

The zoo has a splash pad, which is handy when you are traipsing around in 90 degree heat.
There’s also a second playground, a train ride, a climbing wall and a carousel. We saved these activities for another day.

The kids did enjoy the petting zoo area. There were sheep and goats available for brushing and petting during our visit.

If I was a better blogger I would remember the name of this animal below. Or I would have taken notes. I do remember we had a very lively conversation about how cool it would be if we could run along ropes like this animal!

I looked at the picture below in which I miraculously captured both children smiling while using my camera phone. Except, for the life of me, I cannot figure out who they were smiling at!