bus, zoo, train!

(Also known as "the post with way too many pictures.")

First, an update on Doug's dad. He is doing a little better. He'll be in the hospital for a while, but he's improving. Thank you for your prayers and all your kind comments.

On Friday we made an excursion up to Seattle. We'd talked about taking Kate for a ride on the Sounder commuter train, and I wanted to go to the Woodland Park Zoo. We didn't get either of these things done during the summer, when Doug had tons of free time. But on Fridays he only has classes in the morning, so we decided to do it then.

The Sounder only runs at commuter times (i.e. really early in the morning) so we took the bus up. Here are Doug and Kate at the bus station:





Kate on the bus. Once we got into Seattle she kept saying, "It's the city!"

We changed buses downtown and caught the one going out to the zoo.



By the time we got to the zoo it was 1:00, and they close at 4:00 this time of year, so we didn't have a whole lot of time there. It's a very spread-out zoo with lots of walking. I'd been there once before, years ago, with my roommate Christy, but I didn't recognize very much.



The first thing we came to was the "Zoomazium" indoor play area, so of course we had to go in. (They have these cute kid-size doors next to the regular doors.) Kate was pretty excited. There were fake rocks to climb on, a slide, and a great big (also fake) tree in the corner, that kids can climb up inside. We had a hard time getting her out of there.




When we successfully extracted our child from the Zoomazium and got out onto the zoo grounds, we found other things to play with.





Grates must be stomped on.



There were lots of squirrels around. I took a few pictures of them, too.



"Let's go this way!"



We made it over to the African savanna area and saw the giraffes (and some cute Korean kids who ran up and pointed, yelling "기린!"). There were some zebras, too, but we couldn't see them as well.



Kate checks out the giraffes.



Hippo! (There were three, and we got to hear them bellowing at each other. That was kind of cool.)



Open wide!

Leaving the savanna area, we passed a couple more groups of people speaking Korean. I said to Doug, "와, 한국사람이 되게 많다." ("Wow, there are a lot of Korean people.") Every once in a while I get the nerve to strike up a conversation with somebody, but it's hard to think of what to say.



Kate in the gift shop. We got her a rubber alligator that kept her entertained on the way home.

I was pretty hungry by then, so we got some lunch, and then it was 3:00 and we only had an hour left. Kate wanted to go back to the Zoomazium, so Doug took her over there and I went to look at some more animals by myself.



Ocelot (beautiful animal!)






Another squirrel. This one was really checking me out. Too bad I didn't have anything to give him.




Komodo dragon



A fennec! (I've liked these ever since I read Eleanor Hoffmann's Mischief in Fez as a child.)

We left the zoo at closing time and took two buses to the train station.




The view from the bus.



We barely missed one train and had to wait for the next one, so we just hung out on the platform and played around with the camera.






Kate took this one. :)



Yes, my daughter likes rubber reptiles.




On the train! We sat up on the top level.




There really were other people on the train. A lot of them got off before Tacoma.



The view out the window.



The train after we got off.



Tacoma at night.

Long day! I did okay with all the walking around, but my ankles were really sore the next day. Maybe it's the extra weight. Or it's my shoes.