We had not been to Madison for quite a while, and we took advantage of today's cool, crisp weather (after last night's rain) to pay a visit to the Henry Vilas Zoo. I had never been there before, and I felt like seeing something new rather than retracing already familiar paths, as enjoyable as those have been.
It is a fairly small zoo, but was already filled when we arrived a little before ten. Lots of families, lots of small, small children looking at lemurs and giraffes and American bison. (Buffalo, the sign at the American Prairie exhibit pointedly informed us, are native to Africa and Asia, not to the Americas.) The stars of the show were a polar bear who was splashing merrily away and swimming on its back, a seal who came plowing through the water on its back and the lemurs who were just ... lemurs. We saw lions and tigers and bears, macaws in the aviary, wild asses, a tapir, a rhino and so on.
One nice thing about the Vilas Zoo: it may be small, but it is absolutely free. No charge to park in the totally inadequate lot adjacent to the zoo, but there is plenty of free nearby on-street parking. No admission fee. Lots of opportunities are provided to donate around the place, but the overall feel is, "Come in, enjoy!" Which we did, as clearly did all the kids who were dragging their young parents from place to place. When we move to Madison next year, I imagine the zoo will be one of the places I visit more often.
No comments:
Post a Comment