A Trip to the Zoo

I've been slacking. I checked an item of my list well over a week ago and never wrote about. This is partially due to how absolutely boring this particular item ended up being, and the fact that I was out of town for a week. Oh well, excuses aside (as I know you are just soooo excited to find out what I checked off - HA!), Saturday before last I made a little trip to the zoo and visited the Butterfly and Insect Pavilion. Yippee!
To be honest with you, this was kind of a filler item on my list. When I was looking for things to put on it, I went to a Nebraska tourism website and looked for random things I hadn't done or places I hadn't been to. I really did think the Butterfly and Insect Pavilion would be cool. (Incidentally, "Go to the Wildlife Safari in Ashland" is also an item I added randomly when trying to find things on the tourism site. Hopefully it isn't as lame as the butterfly pavilion though.) I don't mean to bad mouth the zoo or anything as the pavilion was a nice exhibit, it just wasn't all that exciting. Ohhhh, butterflies - done. Really though, there weren't as many butterflies as I though. For the first section of the exhibit, you walk in to a tiny glass room that has a door on each side. This is to keep the butterflies from escaping the exhibit. After walking in the room and they close the door, they give you some brief instructions like not to touch the butterflies. Then the door leading to the exhibit opens and you can walk in. It was pretty short and there really weren't many butterflies flying around. Most of them were up against the window, clamoring to get out!At the end of the exhibit, you went in another room with 2 doors but this one had mirrors on the walls. You had to check yourself for hitch hikers. It also had fans blowing from the ceiling to blow off any potential escapees. Again the door on the other side was opened and you were let out. The other part of the exhibit had other types of insects but these were all contained in displays. Nothing all that interesting and we breezed through and got out pretty quickly.
There was one BIG highlight to this exhibit though. The fact that there were NO STROLLERS ALLOWED! If you have ever been to Henry Doorly Zoo on a Saturday, you know that many exhibits are bottle necked with strollers. The Aquarium in particular was a real pain to get through. I really appreciated the people that opted for the baby backpack thing rather than ramming their tricked out stroller into the ankles of innocent bi-standers. Totally understand the convenience of the stroller at the zoo, but some areas are just too small to have 50 strollers crammed in to at once... (I reserve the right to retract my statement someday when I have kids and want them to ride in style as they look at the fishies...)
So that's it. #16 successfully checked off. I actually thought of replacing this one with something more interesting or challenging but I think I will just play the lazy card and consider it done! Plenty more to go anyway!

Photo of me in the exhibit for posterity's sake.