Capital of Texas Zoo Trip

Wow, I seriously need to catch up. The aftermath of the fire, trying to come home and put everything away, getting re-packed to go on our yearly beach vacation with the Alexanders, coming back and dealing with the clean-up...I was overwhelmed. Anyway, I'm hoping to get there this week. Bear with me!

So, my mom and I decided that we needed to take the kids on an outing, mostly to try and find some normalcy after the fire in Bastrop and our week-long displacement. A few weeks prior, I had snagged some discounted tickets to the Capital of Texas Zoo, which is local to us (in Cedar Creek). We'd never been, so we thought we would give it a shot and see how we liked it.

I LOVE zoos. I would like to be able to visit all the zoos in the U.S. at some point in my lifetime, but I'll settle for those that are within driving distance, for now.

The Capital of Texas Zoo has lots of animals, including the only white tiger in central Texas, some zebras, a lion, and many, many others. The animals seem very happy and well cared-for, and all the employees that we saw seemed to really enjoy being there.

One of these suckers was growling. Loudly.

It was extremely creepy.

They have about four million guinea pigs.

This picture cracks me up.

They look totally bored and unimpressed.

I promise they had a good time! 

Anna was a trooper! Lots of dusty, rocky pathways, almost impossible to travel with a stroller, and she just kept right on smiling!

No matter how much we convinced them that the (harmless) pigs would not bust through the fence and eat them, they would NOT go any closer than this.

He has a murderous look in his eyes, that's for sure.

(I wanted to take him home, but then I remembered that I have enough pigs at my house.)

I think she was looking at some turtles.

Are you paying attention, San Antonio?

We have ZEBRAS!

HA! 

 Hello. You're ugly.

Prairie dogs.

This is Bamboo, the lion.

They have a pretty neat petting zoo, with lots of animals to feed.

And they have the cutest donkey ever.

So sweet!

In a nutshell, the Capital of Texas Zoo isn't bad. It's small, but there are a lot of animals to see. I would not recommend going during one of our famous Texas summer days, where the heat index is well over 100 degrees and there isn't any rain in sight, because you'll be in misery (and you'll leave the zoo with a sandbox in your mouth). Also, do not take a stroller, or anything else that you have to carry or roll through the zoo, because you'll regret it. The only other issue we had was a bathroom problem. There is only one bathroom in the whole zoo, and while we were there, the water was completely turned off. I'm not sure if this was related to the recent fires, or if it's always that way.

All in all, it's a quick trip and you can get through the whole place in a couple of hours, so it won't eat up your entire day (this is good for small children). The tickets are a little pricey for what you're getting, but if you watch the "deal" websites (like Groupon or Eversave) and sign up for e-mail updates (Austin area), they offer half-price deals very often.