Day Two at the Zoo, Then on to the Casino

We went to the zoo on the afternoon of April 18th after Sara got off work. we were hoping we could ride the new Skyfari.

Unfortunately it was still not open but we had a great time at the zoo anyway. We started out by going to see our pictures we had entered in the photo contest from

the last time we were there in March. We both entered a photo in the Plant category and it look like there were only about 25 pictures in that category so our chances of making it to the final five are pretty good we hope. We proceeded to vote for our photos in the plant category and for a photo on every other category before heading over to the Desert Dome.

Some people think the Desert Dome is boring or uninteresting but I like it a lot. There are so

many interesting animals and plants in there and the sand dune when you walk in is so neat. They have so many cools snakes and reptiles in glass cases and I wanted to get pictures of them all (Sara didn't really care for them so much). Sara usually waited for me at the end of the reptile sections because

I took too much time looking at each one. They also have a large array of birds in net cages and free flying. Sara got this great picture of a bird while I was lingering in the snakes still. The plants are another great part of the Desert Dome. We got a lot of great pictures of different plants in here, some of the cactus where huge and sharp!

Next we went under the Desert Dome to the Kingdoms of the Night. It was hard to take pictures down there because it is so dark but it might be my favorite exhibit at the zoo. A large section of it is made to look like caves and they even have a section full of bats.

The last part is walking through a swamp at night where they have Beavers, Alligators and Bullfrogs. They even have an albino alligator down there. It seemed so bright when we headed back outside after being down there for so long but after letting our eyes adjust and grabbing a drink we were ready to head over to the Hoof Stock.  Our first stop in that direction was the Giraffe complex. They had just feed the giraffes when we got in there so they were eating. A sign said that one of the giraffes was born last year but we could no longer tell which one he was; they were all so tall.

As we headed through the hoof stock we saw some warthogs but only for a second before the went behind a fence where we could no longer see them. We did get to see the bongo (the animal not the drum) and some very interesting looking birds. The antelope had just had babies and they had a sign up to not get to close to the fence because the mothers were very protective and could charge the fence if they felt threatened.

Next we stooped in the garden of the senses, although there wasn't much there to look at since the flowers had not bloomed yet. They did have some beautiful fountains and fun animal sculptors to look at. As we made our way towards the elephants we crossed the bridge next to money island. None of the monkeys were out yet but the fish in the pond were very active. When we finally got up to the elephants they were not out yet either but we did get to see the sea lions. We also overheard the tram driver talking about the new Madagascar building they are working on near the sea lions that is suppose to open up next year. The only animal we heard the guy mention was going to be in there were lemurs but I am sure they will have some more interesting animals in there as well. As we were rounding our way back towards the bears and cat house we came across some prairie dogs looking out of their hills to see what was going on.

The bears were not nearly as active as they were the last time we were there, most of them were sleeping. The same went for the cats in the cat house. I don't know if you can see it in this picture the the white tiger was actually drooling in his sleep.

After we got done at the zoo we meet Sara's parents at the Horseshoe Casino in Council Bluffs for dinner and some gambling. After eating and gambling for awhile we were up a few bucks so we decided to head over to Ameristar Casino for a few more hours of gambling. All in all we did pretty well at the casino. We didn't win any money but we didn't lose that much either. All in all it was a pretty fun Saturday afternoon and evening.

** Update - Here is a link to all of our zoo pics from this trip or as always you can see more pic on our Facebook pages.