Chester Zoo

I am wondering sometimes if I am scribbling a travel blog or a teaching blog.

It seems that most of my posts are about places we visited.  In some ways I would like to write more about school and teaching over here.  On the other hand, I need to be careful about what I do say about school and teaching over here, as I do not want to put myself into a defensive position.  I promise, though, that I will post soon about some goings on in my teaching world.  But first, I want to conclude my family time in Chester.

On our last day of Bank Holiday we all went to the Chester Zoo.  This place could not come any more highly recommended by everyone we talked to.  Either people we know had been there and loved it, or they want to go and visit.  It was not cheap, about 59 pounds for the four of us, but the zoo was lovely.  To add to the fun was the weather, which was blue and clear skies and in the mid 70’s.

The place was really full, but since we purchased tickets in advance we missed the massive queue to enter.  Even with all the crowds we never felt too cramped as the zoo grounds are larger than the zoos in Portland or Seattle.  The Chester Zoo is  considered one of the best in Europe, and they specialize in particular animals where they have constructed massive buildings and have created strong breeding programs for them.  These animals include the elephants, orang-utans, and cheetahs.  Of course there were many, many other animals to see, including some we have never seen at a zoo before such as meerkats, mongoose (mongeeses?), a fruit bat cave where the bats literally fly around (and bump into) you, camels, lions, tigers (and bears), penguins, and a variety of monkeys.

Mongoose

One of four, large grassy areas to picnic in.

Having ice cream in the sun. Notice our arms are unencumbered with coats!

The elephants were frolicking, for lack of a better word, all afternoon in their swimming pool. There were two very young ones, two juveniles, a couple mums and one bull. I had never seen elephants “having fun” like these were having. Two keepers had a firehose open on the side, and they would come over for a drink or a soak, then move to the sand and blow sand on their backs, and then literally jump into the pool and wrestle about. 

This snake was shedding its skin right before our eyes.

Everything was in bloom and smelled fresh.

Black Rhino

We stayed until closing, then drove back to Melton.  What a great weekend.  I think having some real spring weather was partly why it was so special.  As fate would have it, it is raining again and temperatures are dropping this weekend into the low teens (mid 50’s). My staff was so glad that I got out and enjoyed the weekend as this Bank Holiday traditionally is wet and rainy.

At this point in our journey we are pretty much booked every weekend until August 1, when we will wake up back in Portland. Each weekend we have day trips planned and dinner engagements at night.  Or we have guests.  Or we are leaving the country to see something else in Europe.  Almost everything we have planned was sorted and paid for months ago, so now it is just a waiting game for each adventure.  I have plenty of work still to do at school and will blog about that another time, hopefully sooner than later.

Sunset over Chester.

PS We passed this pub to and from Chester. The name really caught our attention, but we did not stop in.