My first giraffe sighting

View from the zoo looking out over Colorado Springs. There is a ski lift that you can ride to the top of the zoo.

Caleb and I went to Cheyenne Mountain Zoo a couple weekends ago and it was awesome! I realized two things as we got to the zoo. 1) I hadn't been to a zoo since I was a kid. It was over 10 years ago. 2) I realized as we walked into the zoo that I had never seen a giraffe before in person. I thought for sure I had seen giraffes, but as soon as we walked up to the giraffe area I knew that I had never seen one in real life. I had no recollection of ever seeing these beautiful and graceful animals standing in front of me. There were at least 8 giraffes as well as one little baby one. He was an itsy bitsy guy. Lots of people were feeding the giraffes lettuce, but the little guy couldn't reach up high enough anywhere. Poor fellow missed out on lettuce. Bet he can't wait to grow up!
(I realized I had a lot of exclamation points within that paragraph, so I went through and deleted a few. I was probably as excited as all the little kids to see the giraffes).

The zoo is set into the mountainside so some of the animal's exhibits were natural forestry and plants. This was a very unique and top quality zoo I would recommend to anyone. Loved the variety as well as the creativity put into a lot of the exhibits. The reptile building was quite unique. The lizards and other guys who look like lizards were in aquarium like displays but the displays were set up like art pieces! So you are looking at these art-like things and then realize, "Hey! There is a bright blue lizard right there." Unfortunately, I don't have any good pictures that show what I am describing. We'll have to take pictures of that next time we go. There was also a really neat bird area filled with tons of parakeets and other colorful birds. There were multiple trees and feeders set up with lots of room for them to fly around. Here are a few pictures to show some of the animals at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo.

Baby Giraffe with Mama Giraffe

Isn't the baby just a cutie!?

He wouldn't come out of hiding. Can't remember what he was called.

Porcupine

This face shows why I keep a nice look out when we are hiking in specific spots of Colorado. Although, Caleb tells me if I see one of these guys while hiking then it's too late for me. Yikes!

It was sweet being able to actually touch the wallabies!