Woodland Zoo

After Pike's Market and the bay we enjoyed a visit to Woodland Zoo. What a fantastic zoo this is! The animals are in natural environments and you get quite the hike walking miles of trails to see the different animals. They allow food and drinks inside so you can pack a lunch to enjoy among the animals, but don't feed the animals of course! I couldn't have possibly taken photos of everything but here are some of our favorites.

These giraffes were huge! They stopped us along the trail and shut some gates to allow the giraffes to cross to another area for some "tree top dining". It was spectacular how small they make you feel when you are somewhat close to them.

Below is Gentle Ben. Okay, so it isn't really Gentle Ben but he looked like he could have been. He had quite the personality showing off for us. In the second picture you can see he got bashful and covered his face. He kept it covered until we left.

Here is the king of the jungle. A lean and fit lion with a roar much beyond his size.

He had beautiful eyes if you can see through the glare on the glass between us.

Another big kitty.

The hippos were fun to watch. They had gigantic balls floating in a pond that they played with. They seemed to get a little aggressive for as large as they are. Can't say I would want to swim with one of these!
The girls couldn't resist hopping on top of this bronze statue. They had statues all through the zoo to offer you picture taking opportunities with your kids. We never knew what we would find around the next corner.
Here are my personal favorites. The apes. They are very human like in their mannerisms and it amazed me. We spent quite a bit of time watching them. The one closest in the photo liked to show off. He would put his hand up on the glass for the kids to place theirs with and match it. He rolled over on his back and placed his feet on the glass while rubbing his stomach. He even offered us part of a pumpkin (they had the park decorated for Halloween) by holding it against the glass in front of us. Sadly, this is the only photo that turned out of him. The lighting wasn't good and my camera leaves a lot to be desired, lol.
This snake had just finished a meal shortly before we arrived. Glad we weren't there to see that.
It wouldn't be a zoo without elephants. They weren't very active but were still fun to look at.
All the bird exhibits were open areas that you walked into. You entered one door and shut it before you opened the second door to prevent the birds from flying out. I have to admit I had a huge fear of a bird dive bombing me, landing on me, or pooping on me. Luckily none of that happened and we were able to enter many bird exhibit areas and see them flying all over the place. It was exciting to see them not in small cages but instead in huge areas where they were free to fly and build nests. And boy do eagles build HUGE nests!!!
After visiting the tropical rain forest exhibits where my glasses fogged up to the point I couldn't see what we were looking at and visiting the farm animal petting zoo, the girls enjoyed the spider exhibits. I stayed back and let grandpa take them through it. This was the proof I got back from them seeing it.
If you are ever in the Seattle area I would highly recommend visiting this zoo. There are a few zoos in the area but this one by far beats the others as being high interest, natural, and with a huge variety of animals to see. Definitely worth the time and money!