Metro Richmond Zoo

We had no idea that there was a zoo in Richmond until Henry's Sunday school teacher mentioned it to us a while back.  Since we were heading to Richmond to visit Ken's grandmother, we decided to check out the zoo while we were there.
It's actually a pretty nice zoo.   It's a bit expensive, but I guess private zoos have to be in order to take care of the animals. You could buy a cup of animal food to give to various animals around the zoo.

Cousin Katie was quite enamored with Benjamin.  I guess little brothers are just more fun when they aren't yours!

They had a pretty good variety of animals. Frances likes the zebras because they are cousins to the horse (her favorite animal).

 Benjamin likes any animal he can growl at.  He wanted to spend a long time looking at this tiger because it right up close to the glass. He got really mad when we left this exhibit.

 The giraffes were in an enclosure that was below where people walked. This way people walking over the bridge were at eye level with the giraffes and could feed them.  There was also a shed-like building in with some of the giraffes where Henry and Benjamin could throw pieces of food onto the roof and watch the giraffe eat them.

 Benjamin had a hard time leaving the giraffes behind, but then he saw the sky ride and couldn't wait to get on it. It is a ski lift that goes around half of the park and you can see all the animals below you. We had some configuration problems because Katie wanted to sit with Frances and Benjamin, but also wanted to go with her mom.  Ultimately, Henry went with Aunt Sharon and Katie, Frances and Benjamin came with me and Ken rode with his cousin Tyler.

 After the sky ride, we had a brief snack and Aunt Sharon and her crew had to take off.  We walked through  a few other parts of the zoo and then opted for a "train" ride through the African portion of the zoo.

 

 Mercifully we were not attacked by the  Emus or Ostriches, but we did get to see an Ostrich egg!

 After we were done on the train, the peacock hopped on for a ride!

 Did I mention that this zoo had penguins!!!

I called this the "picture of all my favorite things."  If you look closely, in the background you can see a penguin.  The foreground containing my family should be obvious.