Cheyenne Mountain Zoo and the AFA

Last week after the game, the boys and I dyed Easter eggs. It’s totally messy at this age so I promptly took over halfway through the activity. They loved putting the super hero stickers on the eggs.

For Easter Sunday, Easter Sunday, we took a “surprise” trip to Colorado Springs for the day. We took the kids to the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo south of the city. I heard you could feed giraffes and I thought that would be quite the experience for the boys - - and us!

Well, it just might be my favorite zoo!

The zoo is in the foothills so the whole place is tiered. One of the first exhibits is the giraffes. You can feed them and pet them - - like horses! It was amazing! They are more bristly than soft, their tongues are black and coarse, and they aren’t as domestic as you’d think as you are inches from their faces but they want the crackers that you hold. It was phenomenal.

We also went into an indoor giraffe exhibit where there was a ten-day old giraffe. The zoo keeper came in and said that no one was feeding the mother of the giraffe who was watching over her little one so they gave us free crackers. Bonus!

The rest of the zoo was great. All the exhibits were up close and personal. You felt safe and like you could interact with these majestic animals. The otters were fabulous - - although one of the otters escaped the zoo recently and it’s been in the media a lot. Poor thing. I don’t know how you trap an otter in a city. Let’s see. The bird house was super cool as the birds would land on you and just hang out. There was also a ski lift that took you from the bottom to the top of the hill. It was windy and the chair operators told us that the wind speed was measuring 14 miles per hour. I wonder when they shut it down?

After the fun zoo, we went to Chili’s for lunch. It’s Eban’s favorite. Following our dining experience, we went to the Air Force Academy to see the airplanes that they have on their grounds. It was funny as the gate guards asked to examine the trunk of the minivan for security purposes. As it was opening and they were perusing my trunk junk, Eban loudly exclaimed that “the Army guys were crazy!” Of course, I had to tell him they were Air Force and Ryan proudly told me they were contract security so they probably weren’t even Air Force.

The Otters - minus one