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Persephone’s Missouri Trip

Discussion in 'United States' started by Persephone, 1 Sep 2022.

  1. Persephone

    Persephone Well-Known Member

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    I am tentatively planning a trip to St. Louis and Springfield, MO over Veteran’s Day Weekend in November. Will have three* days (Friday Morning - Noon Sunday) in Missouri. Will probably be based out of St. Louis. Planning to visit the St. Louis Zoo and Cahokia. Have been to the Arch. Didn’t go up but wasn’t too impressed. Anything else that’s a can’t miss in the area? I’m generally more into natural than cultural facilities, but I can be swayed by particularly interesting historical sites or science museums.

    Is it possible to drive from St. Louis to Springfield, see Dickerson Park and Wonders of Wildlife, and get back within a day? Or should I plan on spending at least one night in Springfield? I’m also willing to stay if there’s genuinely more to do in the area.
     
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  2. Forge

    Forge Well-Known Member

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    It would be a long day. Personally, I wouldn’t suggest doing a round trip in one day.

    If you have the time, I’d check out World Bird Sanctuary and Lone Ek Park near St Louis, it’s about a half hour away.
     
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  3. MGolka

    MGolka Well-Known Member

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    It's just over a 3 hour drive from St Louis to Springfield, depending on where at in St Louis you are, so plan on at least 6 hours of travel time.

    Dickerson Park Zoo can be seen in around 2 to 3 hours depending on how much time you take. WOW can take some time. I got through it in an hour and a half due to them closing, but was pretty rushed. My time included the museum part as well as the aquarium.

    So you could easily be looking at 6 hours of travel and 5 to 6 hours to do both zoo and aquarium. There are a handful of exhibits scattered throughout the Bass Pro Shop itself as well.
     
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  4. Persephone

    Persephone Well-Known Member

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    I had a question on the World Bird Sanctuary: is it still a must-see attraction as autumn turns to winter? I’d figured a lot of the rare tropical birds would’ve been moved inside.
     
  5. Persephone

    Persephone Well-Known Member

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    I’m going to Springfield to see the aquarium and zoo over MLK weekend. Also going to St. Louis Zoo with my cousin. World Bird Sanctuary was cut due to the weather and the difficulty of fitting everything into a three day weekend. Will post reviews of all three when I finish. Probably no species lists so I can get through them in a reasonable amount of time.
     
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  6. JVM

    JVM Well-Known Member 10+ year member

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    Look forward to your thoughts and reviews. Hoping to plan a similar trip in the near future so will be very infornative.
     
  7. Persephone

    Persephone Well-Known Member

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    Dickerson Park Zoo

    It was hard to find much information on this place at all. The website is sparse, their wikipedia page is mostly about an elephant doing a murder, and there wasn’t a species list here. For a small-ish city I was expecting the worst.

    And honestly? I won’t say this place blew me away or anything but it was surprisingly competent. Exhibits felt large enough for every species except the primates and mountain lions. The exhibits were all quite basic and almost entirely unthemed, but they had a good selection of enrichment items. A true flamingo aviary is always nice, although they didn’t seem to have many elevated perches. The saki monkey, wolves, and tiger all walked right up to the fence when I approached.

    The one thing I’ll give the zoo major credit for is their signage. It was consistory quite good and often addressed the zoo’s conservation efforts in Missouri and abroad. The map also comes with a suggested route to go through so you see everything, and all the direction signs tell you which way the suggested route goes. That’s a 10/10 feature that more zoos should have.

    The place was also really empty. I saw maybe ten other people the entire time. I was the only person at the gate ready to go at opening. I think the next group can ten minutes later.

    Neither here nor there, but the zoo has just the absolute most peafowl I’ve ever seen. It feels like they bought some in ZT2 or Planet Zoo, turned off contraception, and then came back in a year to find the birds overrunning everything. It was cool! They were being social, flying overhead, congregating in their favorite spots. Just kind of an odd choice.

    The elephant exhibit is closed as the pool undergoes maintenance.

    The baby capybaras were out and huddling close to mama. They were absolutely adorable and I spent so much time staring at them. Also, no way that exhibit was anything but an embarrassment of a hippo enclosure.

    The African hoofstock / ostrich yards are really big. I’m also kind of surprised there aren’t more species in with the ostrich since that’s a lot of space for two birds.

    Overall solid zoo. Nothing to write home about, but top tier if we’re only comparing it to small-ish city zoos (excl. North Carolina).


    Johnny Morris’s Wonders of Wildlife

    I am sitting in the wonders of wildlife parking lot right now gathering my thoughts. I think I like it? I love some aspects of it. Really didn’t like others. Let me try to explain.

    The aquarium section starts with a really cool tank structure with two stories of viewing and a hollow center for guests to stand in while fish swim around them. It has some solid species, too, like tarpon, zebra shark, and sea turtles. Even here the signage is a little lacking as there is only one electronic sign between the multiple viewing angles and it only covers about six species.

    The signage will not improve from there. It was often difficult to tell what I was even looking for in some exhibits.

    The third tank is another two- or three-story tank with some uncommon-in-aquariua fish like giant morays, potato grouper, and malabar grouper. There are really a lot of two or three story tanks in this aquarium, almost all viewable from multiple levels as the path moves up and down seemingly at random between the three levels.

    There’s a lot throughout the aquarium that acts as a museum for angling. I walked right past most of it but thought Hemingway’s boat and the hall of fishing presidents were decent enough. Although the signage for Hemingway’s boat is located at the very end of the taxidermy museum for some reason.

    The absolute highlight of the aquarium is The Swamp, a multilevel nocturnal area with alligators, otters, beavers, flamingoes, lake sturgeon, paddlefish, alligator gar, arapaima, birds of prey, bears hellbenders, and snapping turtles. Plus some stuff I probably forgot. The theming is borderline Disney / Universal levels, even if some of the exhibits are a touch small. The bears and flamingoes are by far the worst offenders there.

    There’s a tank for sharks that has sand tiger, nurse, and a third species I couldn’t readily identify but think were sandbar. None of them had signage. That’s right, they didn’t bother having signage for the sharks. There was also a statue of a white shark being weighed which felt like a Jaws reference. One heck of a prop to put in an aquarium on actual, real sharks. There wasn’t much of educational value in that area in general.

    There’s a sign about halfway through the aquarium that reads “Learning is good but fishing is betterer” and I’m not sure that’s entirely a joke for this place.

    There is a River Giants tank that’s a lot like the one in Tennessee, just with worse signage, a tunnel through it, and less space. The Wels Catfish was no longer signed and the docent at the employee couldn’t tell me if they were still there. There really weren’t many docents at all. Just a few manning the touch tanks.

    There’s an Amazon gallery that was fine. Not many birds, just some pretty standard Amazon fish choices and a baby Orinoco croc. No primates for better or worse.

    The cave area has a really well designed (visually, idk about welfare) area for bats. Another path has a boardwalk through a mock cave with albino channel cats swimming in it. The cave area as a whole had excellent rock work and theming, even if the species list was a bit limited.

    I went through the taxidermy museum. The Native American gallery was cool but needed a lot more signage. Same for the Roosevelt, Lewis & Clark, and turn of the century conservationists galleries. I don’t really care about taxidermy but I thought the narwhals, the park service area, and the Africa room were all decent. Last needed better signage.

    There’s a gentoo penguin exhibit that’s in there for some reason. It’s pretty alright for the species and they have a diving area that’s visible in the restaurant below. Restaurant is a bit pricey but pretty good for what it’s worth.

    Now there’s the thing I’ve tried to hold off on but it really colors my judgment: cost. An adult ticket will run you $46.95. That is more than a Georgia Aquarium ticket at the time of this post. It is not worth that much money. At all. I understand inflation is a thing but that’s out of line with even their peers. They also don’t have a singular big draw like manta rays, marine mammals, ocean sunfish, or even just a really large or well executed shark tank like Tennessee, Newport, and the Ripley’s. The theming is top notch, of course, but I don’t think it justifies the price.

    If they’d charged me $30 for a ticket I would’ve had a lot fewer reservations recommending this place. As it is I think it’s worth seeing once, if only for the cave and swamp, and then probably never again.
     
  8. Persephone

    Persephone Well-Known Member

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    Saint Louis Zoo

    Ah, Saint Louis. Last time I visited I wasn’t able to fully see Red Rocks, the primate house, or the reptile house. Those were my priorities this time but with a little picking up the pace at River’s Edge I was able to see the whole thing.

    I’d forgotten how good this zoo was.

    There’s a docent at the start of the penguin area telling guests not to touch the penguins. That wasn’t a joke. There’s really not much of anything between you and them. They’d been fed recently and were being very vocal and playful. I spent a long time just watching them and the puffins. It’s not the biggest enclosure but it’s a really cool building anyway.

    The bear enclosures all solid. The spectacled and polar bears were being very active when I saw them. Spectacled was playing with a barrel toy, polar bear was patrolling his domain. I’d forgotten how agile they were until I saw him hauling up a pretty steep rock staircase without missing a beat.

    The pinniped exhibit’s full underwater tunnel was cool. Great viewing of the seals and the natural evolution from the usual underwater viewing window.

    Indoor great ape viewing was closed but the outdoor habitats were all solid and they were eating. Turns out they feed a lot of their animals right after opening. If you really want to see one species active it might be a good idea to beeline right for them.

    The Flight Cage had nothing bigger than ducks. Spoonbill and egrets were off display. I was a little annoyed there’s only (minimal) signage at one end. It’s still a very historic and peaceful aviary. My cousin was with me and he thought it was great just watching the ducks. They seemed to be following each other in mixed species groups which was really cool.

    Speaking of peaceful, there was almost no one in the morning due to some light rain. Even by the end of the day I would hesitate to call it crowded. Just occupied. It was weird having the outdoor trails of a major zoo pretty much to myself.

    Ah, Red Rocks. The enclosures are functional. The collection is excellent. Seems like they’re repeating species between paddocks a lot. Maybe someday they should knock down or otherwise open up some of the barriers. My cousin was really fascinated by the lechwe, takin, and banteng. I liked watching the Somali wild ass and cranes. Glad I was able to fully explore this at a reasonable pace.

    Bird Garden was open even if the building wasn’t. Some of the aviaries were empty, though. Currasow were great. Also realizing now that they really had a ton of cranes between Red Rocks / Bird Gardens. I think it’s cool.

    The primates were all inside due to cool weather / recent feeding. That made the complex a little underwhelming. The indoor exhibits would be fairly inadequate for most species without the outdoor trails. The star of the show were the spider monkeys. They were eating and the food containers had been placed in such a way that they had to show their flexibility and prehensile tails to get at it. I watched them for a long time. So did a lot of people.

    I wasn’t as blown away by the reptile house as many people. Some species were cool. I liked the pig nosed turtle and the big softshell whose name eludes me that was in the entry pond area. Hellbenders and mountain chicken are always great. I like gharials and big turtles as much as the next girl. But some of the exhibitry decisions were… odd. A skink and Mexican beaded lizard getting some of the biggest spaces, for instance. Having tuatara but putting your skinks out instead. I dunno. It was fine. I understand why herp nerds like it but I don’t quite get the appeal some people see.

    River’s Edge remains a wonderful exhibit complex. I thought some of the signage was way too minimalist, but it was otherwise great. (I thought a lot of the zoo’s signage was a touch too minimalist all around.) The zoo would be well worth a visit if it was just River’s Edge.

    The Children’s Zoo is dearly missed.

    I couldn’t really fully appreciate the insectarium because I hadn’t eaten in seven hours and every restaurant I came across thinking this would surely be the one they kept open was closed. There’s only one open, for the record. Lakeside Cafe. Which was surprisingly good but only had some very, very basic food options. Vegans can choose between an uncrustable or a black bean burger. Vegetarians get a grilled cheese added in. I’m neither but was still wishing for anything more ambitious than a glorified kid’s menu. I would understand this at like Dickerson Park but it’s weird seeing a big zoo with one restaurant this limited. Even if it’s only a seasonal problem. I know it isn’t tied to exhibitry or anything but it was really hampering my enjoyment by the end. Also bathrooms were kind of sparse and usually tucked out of the way.

    Still top tier. One of my all time favorites. It was wonderful having it pretty much to myself (and my cousin).

    I extended my trip for another day to see City Museum tomorrow. I’ll probably post a review of that Wednesday.
     
  9. Persephone

    Persephone Well-Known Member

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    City Museum is closed on Tuesdays so I just drove home. A good trip overall. I still have trips to Toronto, Pittsburgh, Kansas City, and Buffalo left in my current radius. Leaning Pittsburgh in April for my next trip, but that could change.
     
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  10. Coelacanth18

    Coelacanth18 Well-Known Member Premium Member 5+ year member

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    Thanks for the reviews @Persephone. Hope you're enjoying your trip!

    It's good to hear that Dickerson Park is solid and doing well. It gets very little attention on the forum so wasn't sure how it's been recently. I do know they have a pretty decent herp collection for a small zoo.

    The aquarium in Springfield has a lot more than I was expecting. Seems like Orinoco crocodiles have been showing up everywhere lately!

    I think it's actually useful for herd management, as the zoo breeds many of its hoofstock and having multiple yards can be necessary for to separate animals. At some other zoos these duplicate holding yards would be off-display.
     
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  11. Dassie rat

    Dassie rat Well-Known Member 10+ year member

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    A kiss on the hand
    May be quite continental
    But gharials are a girl's best friend
     
  12. Persephone

    Persephone Well-Known Member

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    Back to Missouri this month, this time in Kansas City. Must sees are the Sea Life and Kansas City Zoo because of AZA 100% quest. Lakeside Nature Center is high on my list for the moles if they still have them. World War 1 Memorial also stands out. Anything else I should strongly consider going to? Caveat is that I won’t be renting a car so can’t really leave the metro.
     
  13. Persephone

    Persephone Well-Known Member

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    I did two trips today. Or really one trip with a walk between them. Let's review. No species list because they both had one last year.

    Lakeside Nature Center, A Tale of Moles and Delight

    I only came here because of the mole. In truth I was expecting a little state park nature center with a couple terrariums, a half hour experience, tops, without lingering for the moles. I was wrong. First off, the building has some pretty impressive architecture. Not distracting, kind of in the mold of parkitecture. The inside has high ceilings and large windows to create a very nice atmosphere. There are bird models and a 12x scale replica of a timber rattlesnake hanging from the ceiling.

    The facility appears to primarily be an animal rehab hospital that displays some of their unreleasable patients. There are a couple exceptions and some animals just don't have an origin listed which is a shame. Learning the animal's histories was my second-favorite part of the experience.

    Most of the animals are indoors inside the main building. The coyote and some of the raptors are outside and viewed through the windows. There might be deer or something on the nature trails, as well as better viewing of the coyote, but I was burning time for my other destination and didn't check.

    A lot of the animals were fairly active in the early morning hours. The grey squirrel was being exceedingly playful and was jumping around the foliage and tiers of their enclosure almost faster than I could track. The collared lizards kept jumping against the wall of their large terrarium. The opossum was also being active in the nocturnal section.

    They still have eastern moles. I wasn't sure they would based on mole lifespans and the specie's generally poor performance in captivity. A keeper did come out, briefly, but I was a bit too shy to ask the questions I wanted to before they left. Before the keeper came she was dozing in the bottom section of the enclosure and basically looked like a large circular rock. Visibility was a little poor given the multiple layers of barriers, dirty PVC, and nocturnal lighting. Photography proved impossible on my iPhone. I just watched. Well, I got bored and watched the opossum. And then the keeper came out and put in some earthworms and the mole woke right up.

    I'll admit that I'm not really a rarity seeker. Don't get me wrong, I would love to see platypus and shoebills, but an antelope is an antelope to me. I wasn't really expecting much from the mole. Just thought I should see it while I was in the city. Turns out they're kind of magical. She navigated her way to the earthworms, plucked one out of the room they were in, and dragged them back into the tunnel to eat. There was some dirt in that tunnel for enrichment and she accidentally blocked her way once or twice and had to dig back through. Once all the earthworms were gone she moved into the tunnel for a while. She liked to stick her nose through the air holes in the PVC (no idea how she found them so reliably without opening her eyes). And they're really strange creatures with their closed eyes and conical face leading to the nose. She did open her eyes, once, and that somehow looked even stranger on her. I've changed my mind on moles. More places should try to keep these things. They can be great display animals, actually.

    For anyone curious she was fed at 9:40 a.m. Not sure if that's a daily schedule or not, though. There was no one else in the center at the time so I had the experience to myself. A few people had trickled in by the end but it still wasn't very crowded at all.

    A wonderful small facility, even without the moles. It's only a few minutes drive (or a half hour's walk) from the Kansas City Zoo, too. I would recommend starting the day at Lakeside if you're visiting. It makes up for the latter's somewhat lacking North American collection.

    Speaking of Kansas City...

    Kansas City Zoo, A Tale of Hubris and Woe

    My hubris and woe. We'll get to that.

    Kansas City Zoo is split into two halves with the soon-to-open aquarium bridging them. The first half is... fine. I liked the river otter and swan exhibits at the entry. At first glance I didn't even think the swans were real. Just pretty props. Kind of a dumb thought, but it did make the realization that those were actual pretty birds fun for me. I watched the bird show and was underwhelmed. Although a macaw did get within five feet of me twice which was very fun. It was just a cockatoo, a brief flyover from a dove, and two macaw free flight demos. Pirates of the Caribbean music was playing. After Indy's pretty good bird / macaw show I guess I just had unrealistic standards.

    The polar bear and penguin exhibits were good but not great after the advances in those fields in the last two decades. The king penguins had fake snow and one had half-buried themself in it. I thought that was really fun. The humboldts were all flocking together at the edge of the water, sometimes moving to go in before backing out. I bought a souvenir cup around this time so I could keep refilling it with gatorade to stay hydrated on the hot day in a mostly outdoor zoo. This is about where my heat management practices ended.

    The Asia section was fine. Most of the exhibits were a little small for their species and the orangutan dayroom was frankly inadequate for the apes. I did like the emphasis on less-seen primates. The red pandas had just been fed and were being active. They're always adorable. Kind of wish they had an outdoor space but they had a large indoor exhibit with lots of verticality so I can't complain too much.

    Australia opens with an exhibit on snakes that had just terrible crowd flow given the holiday weekend. I'm not sure any of the snakes were actually Australian. The kenyan sand boa was the highlight for me as they kept trying to climb up the side of the glass to an elevated platform but weren't quite long enough to do it. Reticulated pythons are always fun.

    The aviary was fine. There were five or so straw-necked ibises that stood near the path and were being very vocal. Easy highlights to me. The zoo's two walk through aviaries both have an emphasis on water and waterfowl. Australia's is the bigger and better of the two. The African aviary didn't even have signed species.

    This leads into the proper Australian section. There are perfectly fine exhibits for emu, dingo, and wallabies. Then there was a(n at the time) bizarre dead end path called Kangaroo Korner, complete with a sponsor. This only made sense when I realize that the entire Australian section was a walkthrough kangaroo exhibit. I only saw them towards the end. It's easily one of the largest I've ever seen and easily my favorite display of the species given the varied spaces (marsh, forest, plains, hills) they have access to. The tree kangaroo exhibit is also really good for the species with excellent verticality in both areas. The visitors around me seemed to really like them when they can sometimes be an underwhelming species for the general public. There is a sheep area that has entrance and exit gates and then does not have free-ranging sheep, which was fascinating to me. Good educational signage on the sheep, though. There was a "Wonders of the Outback" building that was really just two small rooms with kookaburras and two terrariums. Highly underwhelming, wasn't worth putting up with the terrible reptile house crowd flow.

    There was a camel exhibit. The explanation of why there were camels in the Australia section was only found on the viewing area outside the Australia section. Would've preferred it if that was flipped, with the signage on feral camels on the Australia side and the species home range and domestication outside.

    Every other exhibit in the central zoo is fine and I can't bring myself to comment on most of them. I got to pet two goats without buying food. Lorikeet feeding is only available on weekends but is free. You do not get very much nectar but I can't argue with free. Oh, and the zoo was pretty good with letting me bring my cup into almost every building.

    Now we enter the second half of this zoo. It is much better than the first half. It is also where the tale of misery and woe begins. The old tropics house is the one exception to the "much better half" statement I just made. They've clearly renovated an old historic building but most of the exhibits are simply too small for the species they've chosen to put in them. Capybaras should really be pulled from the South American enclosure. The mixed species gibbon / otter exhibit has a swimming path under the visitors and a climbing path over them, which is cool. I liked the verticality. Just wasn't really big enough for the gibbons.

    There's a lot of walking at this point. I could have paid for the tram and skipped most of it but I wanted to see the flamingoes and the full elephant exhibit. At this point the temperature was around 86. I did see the flamingoes. The exhibit is build onto a lush hillside with a solid pond at the bottom. A pretty good exhibit for the species as these things go. The elephant exhibit was fairly large and had good signage on the species as a whole and their seven individuals in particular. The gorilla display was also good at that. Maybe the chimps was. I was no longer paying attention to signage at that point.

    I had almost exhausted my gatorade before I finally made it to the African plaza at the start of that loop. Like an idiot I decided not to finish and refill it then, maybe while grabbing a meal indoors. The zoo was crowded and I wasn't hungry. Plus there had been a lot of food places in the zoo's first half. So I soldiered on and ran out of liquid almost immediately on the (almost entirely outdoors, unshaded, very long) Africa trail. After I had already been walking outside in the sun for several hours straight. Do you understand where this is going?

    The cheetah exhibit was fantastic but I didn't see any cheetahs. The suid and bongo exhibits were fine. There was about ten more minutes of walking to get to the gorilla exhibit, which was above average for the species. Around this point my headache I'd been ignoring throughout the day because was picking up. I knew I was tired. I knew I only had a half-day planned tomorrow. I knew I could go back to my hotel, take a nap, and return the next morning. Dear reader, I did not do these things.

    I was really impressed by the main hoofstock paddock. I don't know why they had clipped-wing cranes mixed in when there were multiple other crane exhibits, one of which appeared unoccupied, but that's my only criticism. It was really great. The lion exhibit was solid.

    One of the highlights of the day was their excellent small animal collection. It was clearly inspired by Fort Wayne, or maybe the other way around. There really are some uncanny similarities between the two African complexes. Maybe someday I'll start a proper zoo vs. zoo series documenting the origins and differences between similar-ish complexes. Fennec foxes, dik-diks, and the tiny blue duikers stood out to me. I loved them all. But by this point I wanted to sit down indoors and maybe take a catnap. I almost did at the lions but the air conditioning wasn't great so I persevered. It was around this point that I realized that my decisions might be compromised. I've had heat exhaustion and dehydration before. I used to be an avid hiker. I knew the symptoms. But, again, my decisions were compromised and I was close to being done with the zoo.

    The other hoofstock yard was less grand but I didn't really care about anything at this point. I was pretty much a walking zombie. Even refilling my gatorade didn't help. I barely touched it. I went to see the chimp exhibit. That really is the highlight of the whole place and I would really, really love to go back and see it while not suffering the effects of heat exhaustion. I might tomorrow. The complex is basically just a fenced in forest. I only saw one chimp, and he got agitated and attacked the glass. This made the crowd viewing inside loud, which made the chimp agitated, and I got out before the feedback loop made me overstimulated. (My decisions were compromised. I was thinking like I'd just pulled an all nighter. Like I was drunk.)

    i saw the hippos. They were fine. The croc exhibit was fine and I did not see a croc. It was at this point that I desperately wanted to go back to my hotel. Like, almost sobbing about it. So I did not see the baboons or wild dogs. I got on the skyliner (which I almost fell asleep on because heat exhaustion), the tram (I did fall asleep on, as well as twice while waiting in line), and called a rideshare. I fell asleep waiting on that, too. In the sun.

    Basically as soon as the car started moving I got nauseous. I tried to ask the driver to stop but they couldn't understand me and. Well. The first time I threw up in a car I was dead sober. I've slept it off for a while now. Sipped my gatorade. The outfit's trashed, which is a shame since I liked that one and it was expensive. But I'm back to feeling almost like a person again, albeit a person who hasn't eaten in eight hours. There's a 24/7 restaurant next door I'll probably get takeout from soon.

    I write this all not to embarrass myself but as a warning to you all as we enter the summer season. This is an outdoor hobby with lots of walking and sometimes very little shade. Hydration alone will not be adequate but you should stay hydrated. Find breaks in the shade and indoors. Make yourself stay there. Split larger zoos into two days if you can to avoid the worst of the heat. I did not. I embarrassed myself, ruined an outfit, spent hours in misery, and ended up leaving most of my cash in the backseat of a ride share to pay for cleaning. Don't make my mistakes. Look upon my tragedy and learn.

    Also I probably will be back tomorrow morning because I would like to appreciate the Africa exhibit, and especially the chimp exhibit, when I'm not delirious. Then it's onto downtown and Sea Life. Yay Sea Life. I can't believe I'm going to do this to myself another half dozen times or something.
     
  14. Persephone

    Persephone Well-Known Member

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    Three trips yesterday, two to zoological destinations. I was not able to see the WW1 Museum but I did make the short climb up to the Monument. Fantastic views, interesting architecture, could probably write an essay on how to balance the combination of grief and celebration in monuments for a bloody, victorious war. Highly recommend going. I personally think it's better than the WW2 Memorial in D.C.

    Kansas City Zoo (Redux), A Tale of Chimps and Survival

    Turns out the restaurant I thought was 24/7 was not here. Oops. Don't even have breakfast hours. Also, while it doesn't say this anywhere on the zoo website, restaurants don't open in the zoo until 10:30. I heard a few other people annoyed by this while I was waiting for it to open because they couldn't get drink refills on what was already shaping up to be a hot day. I waited by the starling aviary so I could have food and water in me before setting out. Fascinating birds. Big yellow eyes and a lot of energy. Can't remember the exact species, though.

    The baboon habitat is one of two guinea baboon enclosures in the U.S. I am very familiar with the other one in Indianapolis. This one's basically just a field with a few small trees and some hammocks. Not much verticality at all compared to Indy, but at least there's natural vegetation and more horizontal space. I wasn't terribly impressed by it. A few baboons were grooming each other but that was about all that was going on.

    The wild dogs had some signage up asking guests to be quiet and stating that the dogs might be injured due to fighting as they sort out their hierarchy and it wasn't that serious. Coincidentally, they also had signage saying that some dogs had mobility issues because of old injuries so. I'll let you decide if it is, in fact, that serious. When I arrived the dogs were all sleeping in the same area but not quite in the heaps they usually do. Might've been heat, might've been social unease. Some visitors were good about respecting the quiet signs. Others were not.

    The hippo area is smaller than I thought it was on Saturday. The water section is okay but the land is basically just a sand pit. Far from the best exhibit I've seen, which is a shame because KCZ has nothing but space in the Africa area and most of the other ungulate exhibits are fairly good. I did see the West African croc. I always forget how tiny they are.

    I don't know what the ostrich did to get separated from both of the other hoofstock yards but she was apparently mad about it. Both trips I saw her hugging the fenceline of the giraffe area. Rhinos were a no show.

    I spent about an hour at the chimp enclosure. I saw them a few times. One was in a tree, partially hidden by leaves until they moved. Eventually another joined them up there, they played on the ground for a bit, and then retreated into the brush. I could occasionally see them there. A lot of guests were complaining that they couldn't see any chimps when they arrived. I get it. But I think it's still an incredible exhibit for the animals and I don't think I'd make any changes. Couldn't even put up trail cams in the back areas because the animals would almost certainly find and destroy them. I did get a look at the signage this time. There's a powerpoint that rotates in the indoor area. The info is great, but I wish it was spread out on signs rather than just slowly rotating through a five minute presentation.

    Update on previous report: there are not black-footed cats. Just two sand cat exhibits. And the kitties are adorable. So were the fennec foxes, which guests seemed to really like. I saw both hyraxes and the spider tortoises this time. Again, guests seemed to like the tortoises (and the bigger tortoises elsewhere). Saw the lemurs get fed. Didn't see a cheetah this time either. The hornbill in the aviary was on display this time and they were pretty cool.

    The African area really is exceptional. Glad I went back.

    Sea Life Kansas City, I Guess We're Doing This

    There aren't really chain zoos. Sure, collections are becoming increasingly homogenized and there are certainly repeated motifs, but every facility is subtly different. It's part of what makes these trips to even smaller zoos worthwhile. And then there's Sea Life.

    Merlin Entertainments has a pretty good reputation among theme park enthusiasts, a fandom I'm very peripherally in. Alton Towers in particular is a place I really want to visit someday. But most of their theme parks worldwide are variations on Legoland.

    When Amazon and texting killed mall culture, the remaining shopping centers needed new anchor attractions. Merlin was happy to step in with small complexes consisting of miniature Legoland facilities, Peppa Pig themed play areas, and small cookie-cutter aquariums. Enter Sea Life. I'm told that some of the international locations are unique, and really good, aquariums. Even scanning the other threads on this forum it seems like a few of the early U.S. facilities have multiple stories, 360 tunnels, outdoor sections, and other unique offerings. The three I've been to (Charlotte-Concord, Michigan, Kansas City) are one-story, nearly identical shopping mall aquariums. I remember walking out of Charlotte-Concord angry that I'd spent that much money on a really weak aquarium. Michigan was really crowded because of President's Day, I think, and that took me out of it. But there was pretty much no one in the Kansas City one. So I guess I can fairly evaluate them now.

    It wasn't bad. At times I really liked it. Don't get me wrong, I paid $25 in admission and taxes / fees to get into a subpar, cookie-cutter aquarium, but it wasn't a bad experience if I ignored the price tag. I like eels. They had a lot of fun eels. I spent a long time looking at their giant moray flick their tail back and forth as they looked out of their hiding place. A green moray was sticking out of the eye of what I think was a simulated whalefall. A honeycomb moray was out in the open moving around. I discovered that dwarf lionfish are tiny and extremely adorable. There was a sea turtle with three working fins that was doing her best. Another sea turtle was visible in a howdy cage so they might be getting another on display soon. Fiddler rays are always great. There was a big whelk.

    My favorite part of the aquarium was the weedy sea dragon area. It was a little off the path, had soothing music and dim lighting, and the dragons are aesthetically interesting slow movers. It was very relaxing. Sometimes I get overstimulated in aquariums and it was a good break. Yesterday wasn't bad because there weren't many people but the overreliance on curved viewing portals and vibrant colors were still sometimes a little headache-inducing.

    Sea Life Aquariums are clearly aimed at kids, just like the adjacent mini-Legolands. The signage on the walls lists kid friendly facts (and occasionally has little quizzes on those facts), small tunnels and video game panels abound, and there are stylized characters explaining things or ushering guests into the next area. I still enjoyed it well enough. It's not mind-blowing or anything. I'm not sure how they'll compete with the objectively better and (for local residents) cheaper Kansas City Zoo aquarium when it opens. The ones I've been to in Charlotte and Detroit didn't have local competition and could stay pretty basic as a result.

    Overall, I don't love these places. That didn't change after today. They're clearly corporate and, more than that, generic. But the species list is sometimes interesting, the theming is unobtrusive and even welcome at times, and it wasn't too crowded today. I'm not upset I went to this one. That's a Sea Life first for me. I'll have a species list up later this week.
     
  15. snowleopard

    snowleopard Well-Known Member 15+ year member Premium Member

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    Thanks for your reviews. They are a joy to read and are brutally honest. :)
     
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