Surprise Trip - the Detroit Zoo!

This story starts when John emailed me yesterday at work telling me that him and Tom were planning a day trip for me and Caroline today (Saturday). I just eat this kind of thing up - absolutely love it. We met up with Tom and C9 for happy hour yesterday after work and Caroline and I were trying to get some hints out of John and Tom about what we'd be doing. They told us we would be leaving around 10:30 (after stopping by the farmer's market) and driving about an hour and a half to our destination. We gave up when they wouldn't give us any clues, and we all came back to our place afterward and we made them dinner - my version of Outback's Alice Springs Chicken. I really love having people over, and they're tons of fun to hang out with. We ended up telling funny stories from our childhood and I haven't laughed that hard in a long time - especially thanks to some of Tom's shenanigans.

This morning we went to Tom and Caroline's to drive together and as we got out of the car, John pulled our insulated canvas picnic basket and his backpack out of the car, which until this point I hadn't seen. John and Tom secretly loaded it up in the kitchen. After a quick walk around the farmer's market, we stopped at Starbucks to grab a coffee before our drive and headed out. I was settling in for the drive, sipping my coffee, and Caroline was attempting some more guesses about our possible destination. She's much more familiar with Michigan obviously, and was guessing Michigan State campus, Frankenmuth, MI, etc. We headed over to the interstate and, instead of turning left onto it, we turned right, back toward Royal Oak. Now I was really confused, especially when Tom pulled over and parked. Directly to the left was the Detroit Zoo... we had been in the car for all of five minutes. I was sooo happy because I have wanted to go since we moved during the summer and we had heard such great things about it. It was a beautiful day and I truly had the best time. Now enjoy all the pictures of the amazing animals we saw!

This is what I saw to the left from where we parked






Two penguins that seemed to be partners - they were doing a kissing type thing



Lindsey - these two are for you - made me think of Artex






Me and my sweet hubby



Tom and Caroline!



Llamas - testing the waters with a hoof






Young polar bear


Here's a video of the young polar bear doing some kind of fancy dance:




This was one of my favorite parts of the zoo - we were lucky enough to be in the underwater tunnel when the adult polar bear was swimming around. Incredible! Check it out:




Here's a video that John shot - a seal, in the same tank as the polar bear, that was enjoying the water jet right in his face - it was hilarious!





Prairie dogs



Cool horse type animal - can't remember exactly what it's called but they're extinct in the wild :(



The back of a wolverine



Setting up the fantastic picnic - fruit salad, pasta salad, potato salad, and chicken Cesar wraps prepared by Tom - delicious!!



The spread



Sleeping bear









I was chasing him around to get a good picture of the tail feathers



Loved this!












Mama and baby gorillas






Oh my gosh I crack up every time I see this picture - so glad I captured this moment!


And this is where we commence the tiger pictures - I could've taken a million but these are the best from today:



Me with the tigers - there were two of them - in the background












Gorgeous!



This tiger was laying on his back and sunning his tummy the whole time






This is for mom - pretty flowers - reminds me of our house in Allentown!



My humps, my humps...






So happy to get a soft serve twist (my favorite!!) at the end of the day



Of course he would... such a joker

I'm sure you can tell, but just to reiterate, it was such a great day and we had a fantastic time. Can't wait to take our future visitors to Detroit to this zoo because it was awesome!