Denver 2022 day 8: May 11- The Ugly Monkey’s Jazz Hands Adventure

Rosa had to do family stuff, leaving Anabelle and I to arise early and head to the Denver Zoo nearly alone. 

I mean, the zoo had very few people in it, we weren't unsure about people hiding in the car.

Of course, Pigeon came with us in the Ugly Monkey to provide entertainment on the ride.
 
Because we got there super early for members only time, all of the license plates were from Colorado. Anabelle lamented that there was “no spice.” Then she realized that “We are the spice” with the out of state plated rental car. There were also visitors from Wyoming, because “all of Wyoming is visiting this state.”
 
Aside- On the day after we returned home, she saw a Wyoming plate outside the pool hall (that sounds seedy, lets go with "billiards establishment" instead)

On the day after we returned home, she saw a Wyoming plate outside the billiards establishment she visited with friends. I got a ranting text talking about adding insult to injury.

 
On this day we started noticing little “Keeper’s Notes” on some of the exhibits, providing insights. The first one we saw was about “Ass Movement.” 

Translation- No, there were no Zoo Salsa lessons. The male and female Somali Wild Ass were separated. This is why the females were in the Zebra exhibit.  
 

We started with the Bear, (as she was an "Enthusiast") watching Tundra’s first thing in the morning exploration.
 

Next door, we found adorable little folks we had missed the other day. Two Leucistic (like albino but not all white) Raccoons that were rescued. They wouldn’t survive in the wild, being exceptionally visible as they were. Therefore, they had a new job being ridiculously cute at the Denver Zoo. Just in case they weren’t cute enough on their own (they were) their names were Cashew and Pecan.
 

Since it was early not all the animals were outside yet, allowing a close (and smelly but impressive) encounter with Giraffes in their house.
 
Passing by the Sea Lions, we nicely had Tropical Paradise all to ourselves. Anabelle was excited to see the Fish (WOO!).We really should commemorate this place, although even Rays moon me now.

Some tanks had divers in them doing the early morning cleaning. They used suction cups on the glass to hold themselves in place to prevent Newtonian reactions pushing them back when they squeegee. Nifty!
 
Sadly, the Sloth’s were not out yet.  Anabelle spotted an ugly Frog in a tank near where we were looking for our slow moving friends, and I pointed out, “That’s its job.”
 
Hey, the little Salamanders we always caught Up the Lake can grow up to six inches!
That’s more than a bit terrifying!
 

Another fun fact- the massive Lizard that was in our parking lot at work one day was a Nile Monitor. (Hoping it was an abandoned pet, not the start of a Herpetological Invasion force. then again that was about ten years ago, and outside of a Box Turtle at the front door and a small Garter Snake in the mail room, there was no other evidence of this "force.")
 
There’s a little hallway with bathrooms that connects the ending hallway to an earlier room, we passed through for a quick check before leaving and found the Sloths! Woo hoo!
 

Over at the Tiger exhibit, Nikita was walking around. Yuri was resting. New Yorkers are more laid back when they don’t have anywhere to go.  We watched them a bit, and then I took pictures of Anabelle in the “photo-op” Tiger Cage. We took them several times, much to her hand’s chagrin on the hot surface as I am used to taking pictures of scenery and always screw up the lighting on people.
 
We paid more attention to other Keeper Notes signs which were cool and helpful. One explained Padme the Camel had arthritis, which is why she sat down so often. But it assured us she was well taken care of. Our curse arose again as we learned Padme passed on a few weeks after our visit.
 
Down Hoofed Mammal Way there was a huge Bunny party in the Okapi pen. On our left, we could see through the bushes into the award winning Elephant Passage. One of the huge, intelligent creatures was giving himself a trunk bath opposite the male Somali Wild Ass.
Yes, I will type that name whenever I can.
 

A couple other Elephants were close up further down the trail. Anabelle took a “Pig Break” declining to search, yet again, for the always hiding in his little house Pot Bellied variety at the end of Ungulates Row. This was especially due to the angry Geese near the enclosure.
 
At the first of Anabelle’s favorites, there was a Tapir butt. I assume the rest of the Tapir was attached. It was hard to check since we had an extremely close encounter with a Squirrel charging us on the fence to that area. There was much girly screaming…

Anabelle may have yelled as well.
 
The Hippo was smarter than us and stayed submerged on the hot day. We had a walking moment of silence for the empty Vulture exhibit on the way around the Pachyderm house to the Primates.
 

The Monkeys were fun, as always. (I love Monkeys.) Then we entered the Ape house. The big Bornean Orangutan immediately threw a blanket over his head to hide.
“Me too.” Said Anabelle. 

The Gorillas were all napping in various outdoor location.
“Me too.” Said I.

 
The Red River Hogs were also napping in the shade. Anabelle waved, passed on Pigeon’s greetings and we continued to the Mandrills.

They were playing around having family fun time. At this point, it was only 10:30AM, we had finished a majority of the zoo, and the class trips were just starting to arrive.
 
Clearly this was the way to do a weekday visit.
 
On the way out of the Primate Panorama to Monkey Island, we heard the leader of one of those class trips going over a Milk Plan for the kids that was far too complex for us to follow, or repeat here.
 
On the cages across from Monkey Island (which are connected to the island by tunnels) we found our favorite Keeper Explanation sign, and in fact, our favorite sign of the whole trip, if not our whole lives.
 

(As God as my witness, there were Monkeys in this picture when I took it AND when I uploaded it.)

The sign detailed the story of Ginger, a lonely female hooded Capuchin Monkey. Ginger was set on beginning a relationship with Bailey, a male sharing the living space with her. The way she went about her courtship was to follow Bailey around all day and incessantly scream- directly into his face.
How romantic. 

Leaving our loud and horny Monkey friend behind, we followed our singing path, (“Everybody’s got a Water Buffaloooo-ooooooooooo!”) to the African carnivores. 

The Lions and Hyenas were all sleeping. Alas. 

There was a small bronze statue of a Turtle in the Lion viewing house, similar to one Anabelle always sits with in Congo Gorilla Forest in the Bronx Zoo. I asked if she wanted a photo with this one, and she said,
“No, I’m not cheating on my Turtle.”
Of course not.
 
We took the song path (“Buffaloooo-ooooooooooo!”) back to the Pachyderm house, because we will take any opportunity we can to see Rhinos, Hippos and Tapirs.

Having dealt with that addiction, it was time for the final part of the zoo, Elephant Passage.
 
Continuing the thread of this hot day, the “Chubby Unicorns” (Indian One Horn Rhinos) were resting.

The Gibbon friend couple were grooming each other. As usual we watched them long enough to say, “APES!” any time someone called them Monkeys.

Don't make us break out the OTHER Veggie-Tales song.
 

The little side building only had the Otters out that day, but there was an Elephant in their house across the way.
Smell the nature indeed.
 
Anabelle refused to stick her head in the Elephant ears, and wouldn’t let me go anywhere near the “Can I have the kniiiiiiiiiife…pleaaaaaaaase” spinners.
(Getting cranky when hungry is a family trait.)

Therefore I stuck my head in the Elephant ears! Ha!
 

We tried the Asian food Anabelle had when she and Mami came alone on the last trip. Her dumplings and my Tuna poke bowl were excellent, and well above standard zoo fare. They were also well below standard zoo portions.
 
Therefore we had a pretzel party on a rock just outside of Elephant Passage. No salt was not an option, but the place still had incredibly high quality pretzels. We finished our snack/ dessert/ end of lunch watching some folks preparing to repave the zoo walkways.
 
Continuing our reverse (counterclockwise) lap of the zoo, we made a return stop for last looks.
 
Tundra the Grizzly was polite enough to come out and say goodbye to us. Over by the White (I’m not going to try to spell Leucistic again) Raccoons, there was some difficulty. They were hiding behind their picnic table.
 
We said farewell anyway, passed a man after my own heart making Chewbacca noises at Tundra, and started toward the exit.
 
On the way we met one of many extremely friendly and helpful volunteers. This woman asked if we enjoyed our day. We told her we were from New Jersey but visiting multiple times the week we were there. She had been a teacher for many years before retiring, meaning she bonded with Anabelle pretty quickly. We talked about the differences between Denver and the Bronx Zoos, and how we all watched the Bronx Zoo series that had now Denver resident Yuri the Tiger on it. She told us she had retired because her daughter already had three kids and then had triplets.
 
Jinkees!
 

Stopping only to use the Animal Butts bathroom and for a quick, yet still futile, look through the gift shop, it was time to return to the Ugly Monkey.
 
Of course, first we looped around the parking lot for a last, and equally futile, license plate check.  We did see an Alberta on the way home, so “woo” or something.
 
Back at Titi’s they were watching the theatrical release of the Justice League film. Anabelle felt she needed a cleansing after Superman Returns. She needed rest more, however, and napped up until Kal El’s return. (Titi was on and off throughout.) Yes, I agree the movie is clunky, but it is fun, entertaining, and the Superman parts prove Cavilll could do wonders as the classic version of the character.
 
As it is her favorite Superman power, Anabelle let out a huge cheer when he used his freeze breath in this much improved interpretation.
 
She also looked up what changes were made in the Snyder Cut, (the fact that the plot is the same, and it only adds more violence and darkness) and then ranted about it excessively.
 
That’s my girl.
 
After the success this morning, we changed our arrival time for the family zoo trip the next day to take advantage of the Member Extra Magic Hour again. Rosa did this as we drove the Ugly Monkey to Walmart for supplies in a continuing trend. Then I pulled into a gas station and almost started filling the car with Diesel. That would have been bad, (major underuse of "bad" here) but luckily I am not COMPLETELY clueless and noticed there was no octane selection buttons on that pump.
 
The next stop was Target, which proved to be a total waste. They had nothing we needed (the actual word) for our stay, and also nothing we “needed” (my personal definition) in the way of Action Figures and Batmobiles.

At our second consecutive Yogurtland stop we figured out that this was not the place we went to the day before, even though it was also in an almost identically laid out strip mall with a King Soopers.
 
Much miscommunication for most of this afternoon’s travels led to us needing to stop at Walmart (yes, again.) on the way home to get milk and shoe inserts.
 
After surveying far too many menus once more, Anabelle and I decided on a return to the Flying Pig pulled pork tacos. Oddly, they were missing from the online menu, nearly leading to a double melt down as we stared blankly at what remained on the menu, far enough into CrazyHungryLand that choosing another food source was nigh impossible. Luckily a quick phone call yielded two pieces of information:
1) The owner had no idea why they vanished off the online menu.
2) He could put the order in manually and we could pick it up just the same.
 
A short walk and a nice dinner later, Anabelle and I were newly calmed. We checked some emails, washed up and started the process of packing.
 
There was a pause for the silliest Dinosaur trivia questions we could think of to ask each other.
 
And because it’s us, there was also more superhero talk and Disney World Trivia.
 
Reading the Silmarillion takes a great deal of concentration. Therefore I continued at my couple of pages a night, slow pace, before passing into the darkness in the basement yet again.

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