The Saturday before the hurricane, a friend from Houston was in town and after catching-up and eating a delicious brunch at Elmo, we traveled over to the Central Park Zoo which has been on my to-do list for years. The zoo is tiny, but it has PENGUINS which I have been obsessed with since I was ten.

The sea lions were pretty active and while we were watching them we were standing next to the cutest little girl who kept telling her dad “Maybe we could get some…maybe they could live in our house…maybe they could take baths with me…” As we were leaving the park later, we saw the sea lions were actually putting on a show with their trainers, so that’s definitely something to try to catch next time around.

We spent a while watching the red-butted monkeys, watching them jump around the rocks, roll on their backs, and groom themselves, in typical monkey fashion.

There are a bunch of other mammals in the zoo as well, including snow leopards and a polar bear, but they weren’t really bringing their A games that day.

The tropic zone was full of birds but pretty sweltering so we didn’t spend too much time in there, although I did find two birds with UD colors. I love seeing blue in nature because you don’t really see it in living things that often.

The penguins are absolutely the zoo’s highlight. They have Chinstrap, Macaroni, Gentoo, and King Penguins. Most of them looked like they’re having a really good time, diving and zipping through the water, although some of them were pretty sleepy.

I loved the penguins and probably could have stayed there watching them (and trying to talk to them) all day. I even tried to take one home with me.

xx