Birmingham Zoo

The Birmingham Zoo has a lot to offer the average family of 2.67 children. Bring a good stroller and comfortable walking shoes, as it is fairly spread out for a city zoo. No, it's not Disney, but it does have an impressive menagerie of animals grouped by their geographical locale more than anything else. I'm not sure it has more animals that the Montgomery zoo, but it does have more eateries, more walking paths, more interpretive displays, and more notoriety (sp?). We had a nice time today - my favorite was the gorilla. This ape was closer to the glass and more interesting to watch than any other of its type I had ever seen. The gorilla systematically chewed away its lunch, then regurgitated it, spat it onto his hand, and began eating it again. This happened several times over. Not sure why, but I guess that's just how it goes for these wild animal. It was about 1.5 hours away, but the kids, already being excellent travellers, had no problem with the distance. Afterwards, we visited Smith's Variety shop in the community right outside the zoo entrance. That was kind of like a Ben Franklin, in a smaller space, with four times as much stuff. Most of it was nicer than the typical dime-store merchandise, so it is needless to say that we spent all of our time "just looking". I should have guessed before going in, noticing that the storefront was flanked by Mercedes, Infiniti, and Lexus SUVs - one toting a 2-star DoD sticker. It was fun nevertheless and we went home, exhausted after another exciting President's Day. God Bless!