Winter At The Denver Zoo With Dakota
12/28/06
My daughter Dakota and I went to the zoo today in the middle of a snow storm. It was her idea. We had a blast! We hid in a "termite hill", saw the arctic foxes run, and watched the polar bears frolic. We had cheeseburgers for lunch inside the warm Samburu Grille while a peacock watched us from the other side of the glass.
I counted only eight other people in the zoo during the hour and a half we were there. It felt as though we got a lot more personal attention from the animals, many of whom seemed surprised to see us there. The seals took absolutely no notice of us (even when we tried barking hello to them), but Rhama, the female Kimodo dragon, took interest in Dakota after she began talking in snake tongue to it a la Harry Potter. I bonded with a Queen Triggerfish that kept swimming straight at me - she had such beautiful eyes - I had an instant crush on her
In the giraffe house I made melodic, percussive sounds by taping my cheeks and popping my lips. The younger giraffes stopped eating and stared at me. Soon the elders did too. The giraffes appear to be very in touch with music: earlier in the summer I blew over the opening of an empty water bottle, creating a tubular whistle, and all the giraffes stopped what they were doing (eating) to check it out. The buffalos were the only other animals that seemed interested in the water bottle that day. I am guessing that the zoo animals get pretty accustomed to all the typical sounds humans make (talking, laughing and screaming), but that they do not get much chance to hear our more musical sounds. Next time I am going to bring a wooden flute along.
We headed over to the bird house but were intercepted by a zoo official in a golf cart who told us the zoo was closing early because of the storm. I gave him the, oh-really?-I-had-no-idea look. "You're the last ones in here. Come on. Time to go."
We really just wanted to know what the elephants do when it snows.
posted by Ben Makinen @ 3:44 PM
2 comments
2 Comments:
Ben, you are hysterical. I love it!!!!!!
That's funny, Soul, because Gabi and I went to the San Diego Zoo on NY Day, and ended our communion at the elephant exhibit, where 21-year-old Debbie, an Asian elephant, was sashaying and rocking her massive trunk back and forth side to side, perhaps in tune with the jazz music emanating from the nearby outdoor cafe.
she did this for about 15 minutes, without stopping, oblivious to the noise of the Zoo Trains (actually double-decker busses outfitted with tinny speakers and blaring voices of the drivers telling the passengers "funny" (as in, everyone's a comedian) anecdotes about the animals.
We stayed until 5pm. when the zoo closed, then went to the great Vietnamese restaurant called Saigon, with its 350 items on the menu (plus about 20 different juices and coffees and boba infusions). You think to yourself, "Yeah, that's a lot of dishes, sure." But then you do the math -- You and four dining companions would need to chow down there once a week for a full year to get through the entire menu just one single time!
As Uncle Donny would say, "Dem dere's a lotta dishes!"
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