Napping Time At The Zoo?

So this past weekend the family set out for the NC Zoo. Well, minus one kid who had other plans. We arrived at the zoo and all was well. Everyone was excited and the weather was just cold enough that we wouldn't get hot walking. For the first hour everyone, including me, was running from exhibit to exhibit marveling in every creature. 

About an hour in, the excitement faded but we we still doing well. Three hours in. We had hiked 2.5 miles and we were hungry and thirsty. We stopped at a drink machine and water was $3! Oh hell naw! We got one to share and headed back to our car to fetch the cooler and have some lunch. Looong way back to the car. By the time we got there and set up our picnic we were famished. As I begun to set out the food I realized that I had forgotten the main course, the sandwiches. WTF? I tried to encourage the kids to enjoy the lovely snacks but they were pissed. It didn't help that the table next to us had Domino's delivered and had about 10 pizzas. We ate whatever snacks we could and then headed into the zoo caffe where we spent $30 on PB & J sandwiches and hot pretzels. 
Part two of the zoo expedition was a bit more difficult. We were now tired and for some reason we had somehow picked to travel the zoo on the paths that all went uphill. This was very difficult for us all because we had been walking for hours already. In this particular section of the zoo each exhibit is about an 8 minute walk between animals. So here's how the next 3 hours played out. Walk, walk, walk, walk, walk, walk....almost to the lion...walk, walk. At the lion...oh he's asleep. Damn. Next up the rhinos. walk, walk, walk, walk walk...almost there, walk walk,, rhinos are asleep. Damn. Onto the bears....walk, walk, walk,walk,,walk, walk,,almost to the bears, walk, walk, walk complain, bitch , moan, walk, complain... bears are asleep. This repeated for all the major animals that we really wanted to see, polar bears, penguins etc. Now the birds were all awake, and so were the turtles, and the frogs. But all the big guns were napping. So we walked miles to view large animals asleep in a cave. Here's a few pics of the awake animals:










 Good times.  At the last exhibit, the Sonora Desert an animal shitted in my hair. This building was so packed you could barely move so how did that animal get me so perfectly? Dunno. 
I felt something land on my head and thought it was water dripping from the pants. I reached up to feel it and pulled my hand down covered in shit. I began to laugh, hysterically, until I broke down and cried, yes cried, in front of about 60 people. My kids were asking "what's wrong?" "what's wrong" but I couldn't stop laughing/crying long enough to explain. I'm a bit unstable apparently.
An hour prior to closing we lined up to catch a tram back to our car. Apparently so did the entire zoo so the promised 5 minute wait between trams turned into a 35 minute wait. 35 minutes full of people in line complaining. What a perfect way to end the day.
 Anyway we made it back safe and exhausted. But I doubt we will be doing that anytime soon.