Five years of fun redux

Five is the magic number this year.  Not only did we celebrate our fifth year of marriage this past weekend, last night we celebrated five years of Detroit Zoo membership with Member Night at the Zoo.   The zoo's way of saying thanks to their regular supporters, member night is exactly what it sounds like - an evening during which the zoo is open after hours to members only.  There's a little more to the story, too, and that includes free rides on the zoo train, special keeper talks, music, puppet shows (puppet shows at the zoo? We'd rather watch the real animals thanks), and special animal enrichment times.  Since it can also mean crowds at the popular spots (we  vividly remember waiting well over 30 minutes to take the train back to the front of the zoo at the end of the night several years ago), we tend to do things our own way to avoid the throngs.  This year we boarded the train as soon as we got into the park, waiting only about 15 minutes for our ride to the back (Calvin's first ride on the zoo train, nonetheless!) where, instead of rushing to the first enrichment exhibit with everyone else, we kicked back with a fresh homemade summer salad and enjoyed a leisurely dinner with the  zebras and the peafowl.  We missed the puppet show, the warthog feeding, and the wolverine keeper talk, but with all the people crowding those specific areas, we felt like we had all the room in the world to enjoy the aardvark (who was fast asleep not three feet from us, just over the railing), the kangaroos (who graced us with a hop by on the path), and the hippo (who actually got out of the water and wandered around for Calvin to enjoy).  Evening is a great time to view the animals and avoid the oppressive heat of summer.  Member night alone feels like reason enough to keep our membership in good standing.  We love our zoo.

More pictures.  Here.