National Lampoon's zoo adventure

Yesterday my friend, Jen, and I planned a day trip to travel south to go to the Greenville zoo. You see, while Asheville is about the coolest place in the world to live, we only have a Nature Center for all of our animal viewing pleasures, which boasts all critters native to Western North Carolina. And as cool as black bears and foxes are, when I think about spending a day looking at animals behind guardrails, I want to see elephants and tigers. Call me a snob, but once you've slammed into a deer while driving in Iowa, the idea of paying money to see one graze in a controlled environment is kinda laughable.

And since Jen has a minivan, we transferred Taylor and Luke's carseats into her ride and all made the hour and a half trek south to see some exotic creatures. And - Woo-boy! - the kids were pumped. And so were Jen and I. And for the last ten minutes of the drive, we kept shouting in thirty-second intervals, We're almost there! Watch out, Zoo, here we come! This is going to be the BEST DAY EVER!

So imagine the utter disappointment when after we parked and got out of the car and walked to the gate we stopped and saw the teeny-tiny ZOO CLOSED FOR MAINTENANCE sign. Seriously?

But luckily there was an awesome park right next door. And thankfully Jen had packed cookies and muffins to ease our pain. And we actually were able to spot an elephant's rear end between two trees when we spied through the gate. And we heard some monkey's screeching and howling. So I guess there were some animal observations.

And thank goodness the weather was amazing and the park was fun, because we were able to run the kids for about two hours before packing everything up and making the trip home.

So it wasn't a total wash. In fact, it was a pretty great way to spend our day. Much better than watching a deer taking a nap, that's for sure.