The Honeymoon Adventure - Day Two - Calgary Zoo BONUS

Now what adventure would be any good without a bunch of selfies and a surprise event that we were lucky enough to be there for? Lucky enough for you, I am giving you exclusive access to these bonuses at the Calgary Zoo.

First thing's first. Look at this lovely place we found to enjoy the scene once we were running wandering through Eurasia.

Ooh, pretty. :)

Let's take a selfie! ^_^

Now that that's out of the way: They had shops in like every area and this is something that I had to take note of because you just don't get to see that sort of thing happen all too often.

The quality of that picture didn't turn out that great for some reason. Luckily, I don't think clarity is REQUIRED to see what's wrong with these items on sale.

Also... Fish. There were some indoor places around that had LOTS of fish. Carley has always wanted an active fish tank at home. Do you think this would be overkill?

Now for some pictures of Carley with animals. I've never seen someone so brave, getting that up close and personal with the animals. I guess they've been trained really well.

Wow! Even getting right up next to the cubs! How crazy is that? Actually... speaking of bears...

No wait, that's not an animal Kyle... it's just a log... let's try that again.

For those of you who aren't sure what that is... it's a bear. No, not a polar bear just a regular brown bear. Only... it's not quite brown. I didn't know they could come in different colours, but it turns out that they can! I mentioned the white bear in a previous post along with the bear training that we were lucky enough to catch if you're interested in reading about that.

I don't know about you, but I'm having fun. What about you Carley?

Oh... Uhh... is that giant petrified tree stump? That's right it is, and there's more where that came from.

There's my tough girl, being all tough and stuff after so bravely approaching those creatures. Hmm... I wonder what else we can find around here if we wander some more? Has Carley found something? Let's go follow her and find out!

Hey, what are you doing back there? Come out so I can take some beautiful pictures of my new wife!

That's better.

Wow, looking great in all the places. And rockin' those space pants!

Wow! Wait... aren't those penguins a little bit....... big? I'm getting a strange feeling here.

Now we've had a great time looking around and enjoying the views. and things, but I think it's time to find our way out of here. We've been here at the zoo since it opened this morning and I'm thinking we should find somewhere else to explore or something else to do for a little while before supper.

Now... how to we get out of here...? Wait... is that...?

Uh oh, looks like we've stumbled into the Prehistoric Park.

Yes it's pretty, but we should be careful we don't want to get trampled or eaten, right?

Really Carley? don't you think you're a little bit close?

No really though... shaking hands with them?

Alright, alright, I'm not mad, you can come out of hiding now.

Alright, but did you have to kill it?

Okay, I'm glad you had fun, but now it's time to go for real.

So that's everything. For serious this time. No more bonuses. We did really have a lot of fun though. We managed to get there at opening time and with how much we looked around, we basically went through the whole place twice by the time we left... and I think that was around 3:00 if I remember correctly. We even got some souvenirs from the shop (everything is probably way too expensive just because of the location) including Carley's panda sweater and my stuffed wolf which has been happily added to my collection of stuffed animals over the years.

Now, believe it or not, we're finally done with the Calgary Zoo. Time to move on to other parts of the adventure.


~ Kyle Welykholowa

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The Honeymoon Adventure - Day Two - Calgary Zoo Five

Today I bring you to the final area of the Calgary Zoo: Eurasia. As you can imagine this areas has creatures which one would find in the area of Eurasia, and let me say, there is no shortage of cool creatures there that I would likely never see if not available to witness in a place like this.

I've seen all sorts of cartoons of camels, and probably seen a couple in movies as well, but actually witnessing one for real is something entirely different.

I'm not a big fan of lizards, but I have heard of Komodo Dragons before thanks to The Kratt Brothers and Zaboomafoo. They really are as big as seen on TV.

Now I know Carley really liked THE WHOLE ZOO, but this may have been her second favourite part right here:

That's right. Real. Live. Pandas. Now she wasn't quite in awe as she was earlier with the Giraffes, but she was still pretty much pressed up against the glass to see them. And I will admit, they are kinda cute; I don't normally think bears are all that cute, but Pandas seem to be an exception for me. Also, I wasn't able to get a good picture of it, but they have much bigger teeth than I would have ever imagined.

Now the trail we were on which led inside to see the Pandas then went outside and into The Panda Market. I cannot describe to you the number of things inside that place that are ALL panda themed. Seriously... everything. Carley got an awesome hat inside which... is.... somewhere around the house right now. You'll see what I'm talking about in some following pictures.

Back outside we go to see the rest of the creatures. Turns out some cats LIKE to climb trees.

Now I've said before that other areas were my favourite and as I think about it more and more, I realize that I have favourite things in every area. In the Canadian Wilds, it was the wolves. In Destination Africa it was the Lemurs. In the Dorothy Harvie Gardens, it was the amazing butterflies. Here in Eurasia it is without a doubt the Red Pandas. I didn't even know there was such a thing as a Red Panda before I saw them on this trip... isn't that crazy? Here's a look at how adorably cute they are!

It may be difficult to see in this picture, but they have their own treehouse to hang out in.

Isn't that so cute? It's like... I don't know... a dog / cat / raccoon thing.

These were nearby the Red Pandas. I don't remember what they're called... but isn't Carley's Panda hat real cute like all the pandas we've seen? I MEAN TOUGH.

Finally at the end of the Eurasia trail there was a Tiger.

And that covers everything there was to see at the Zoo. What a lovely place it was to visit. I'm really looking forward to the trip we have coming up in July 2019 when we're going to Winnipeg (there's a zoo there too I hear). I will absolutely be taking tons of pictures and telling you all about that as well once we go on that trip.

(I plan to be a little bit quicker with telling the story of our adventure next time though.)


~ Kyle Welykholowa

Back to Honeymoon Adventure

The Honeymoon Adventure - Day Two - Calgary Zoo Four

Well with our upcoming adventure to Winnipeg, I figure I should get a move on with posting the rest of our honeymoon adventure. So let us continue with the next leg of the Calgary Zoo: The Dorothy Harvie Gardens.

This part may have been my favourite of all; as much as I enjoy being inside... if I'm going to be outside, it may as well be in a warm environment with lots of pretty things to look at. Now this area was quite big on large areas of growing plants and things... in retrospect, perhaps I should have taken a picture of some of the beautiful areas and arrangements of flowers and plants and things; though to be fair, it was kinda raining and/or dreary at the time. If any of you live in an area where your city grows arrangements of pretty flowers and things, then you can just imagine that, only in the middle of a Zoo.

(As a side note: if you grow your own personal arrangements of pretty flowers and garden things, I would love to see your handiwork as I've been trying for years to grow even a single flower within my house and it never seems to work out.)

Within the Dorothy Harvie Gardens area there is a building which has some neat information on scientifical such as photosynthesis and how butterflies keep themselves warm using sunlight similar to how a solar panel works. Probably even cooler than that, is that there's a huge room inside the building which is kept at tropical temperatures so that they can grow real live plants of all sorts from different places as well as keep butterflies in there.

Let me share some of what I saw:

I could have taken so many more pictures of the plants, but with there being so many plants it would have been an almost endless stream of greenery that nobody would really be able to appreciate without actually being there. As you can see, I did manage to get some neat pictures of some of the giant butterflies that were there. Of course, it can be rather difficult to get a good idea of just how big some of these flying bugs can be; so here's a video to give you a much better visual of how huge these things are.

Isn't that insane? It definitely blew my mind. There are tons of these things flying around this greenhouse-type building. They also have a space for incubating butterfly cocoons as well where you can see through the glass rows and rows of hanging cocoons, all at different points of growth from beginning up to hatching. Of course... again... I didn't think to take pictures BUT IT'S REEEEALLY COOL YOU SHOULD GO SEE IT!

If you're at all a fan of animals, then you really should go to a zoo and check it out. Maybe some people would think it's cruel to lock up animals, but seriously... how would we get a chance to see this stuff and learn about them and appreciate them if we as regular people never have a chance to really see them in person?

Stay tuned for next time when I tell you about the Eurasia section.


~ Kyle Welykholowa

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