Opa and Oma visit - Wednesday: Palo Alto Jr. Museum and Zoo

After a nice visit to Rodin's garden at Stanford, we headed over to the museum and zoo. It is such an enjoyable little place. Especially because it runs as donations only. Today the place was packed. Another parent told me that it was spring break in Palo Alto which makes sense. It was quite a bit more crowded than we have seen before. Still, not so so crowded that it was unenjoyable. Wyatt was still able to put on the costumes he likes (butterfly, and his fav- praying mantis), and Nick was able to play in the butterfly hidey hole (honestly I don't know a better name). After seeing and doing much of the things in the museum it was off to the little zoo. What a day! So many things were moving around today! We got to see a gopher snake in his full stretched out position moving towards a tightly coiled position. The blue-tongued skink was on top of his log. We did not see the blue tongue. The peacock was again high up in the tree; higher this time than last. Again do they fly? Why don't I just google this? Then the biggest treat of all was the bobcats! The last two times here, we only saw parts of them sleeping, and never the entire body. This time both of them were up and about. We could get so close that it was tempting to reach out and touch them. LOVED IT! Impatient Wyatt does not like to stay too long at any one exhibit so off to see the huge tortoise who was not outside. However we lucked out that the bats were moving around a great deal in their hanging upside down slumber. None were flying about, but we could tell features, etc, and not just blobs. No luck on the raccoons. One was at the far end of the enclosure asleep and no idea about the other one. Birds were a bust - too many kids in there for W to want to climb up in the aviary to see them up close. Yes on the goose. Why they are so excited about a goose I don't know. We got up very close to him, and just as I was warning the boys NOT to put your hand out to touch it, another young kid held his hand out and got chomped. I found it slightly amusing (because I am a bit evil), but then Yannick got upset that the goose bit the other kid (who, for the record, did not even cry but was definitely surprised and not happy about it). We saw the two bunnies, though the boys were not interested, and the ferrets and boa constrictor which were both interesting. Opa was telling Wyatt that the boa wanted to go play with the ferrets. W thought about it and decided that he would really eat the ferrets. :) A good little visit to the zoo and off to the adjacent playground for a picnic lunch. We played for about 30 minutes, and headed back home for naps.