Detroit Zoo Wild Lights 2018 Experience

Hey there everyone. 2 years ago I went to the wild lights at the zoo with Mskate, and we decided to go to it again. We were going to see "Instant Family," but our schedules weren't able to line up with the movie times, so we instead went with something that doesn't require us to align our schedule to a movie that is on it's way out. Before the wild lights, we went out to dinner at a place where she and her family go frequently. It's just a small family restaurant, and it was fun. We chatted and caught up after not seeing each other for a while.

Now for the zoo. We parked off the property to save $10 on parking, and extra exercise. We were able to get in easily. Our ticket was for 7:30 and it was like 7:20. While there was a line, we went in really quickly. Right off the start we saw some jungle animal lights.

Quite fun. What was really interesting was what they were doing at the penguin house. They put in a new penguin house last year, and while I haven't been in it, I'm sure it's quite neat. However, they did do some projection on the side of the building.

There was also this cool jumping frog lights thing. I saw it before, but here it is again.

We also took a selfie in front of one of the trees. We kind of went off the official path to get to it, so don't tell anyone.

Now for the really cool thing. Last year the only exhibit that was open was the reptile house (because reptiles require constant heat lamps and sleep whenever they do, unlike mammals who have sleep schedules), but this year the otter exhibit was also open. I was able to see some and get pictures.

The beavers were also out, but I wasn't able to get any good pictures of them. 

We also saw this really cool display where the lights danced with the music.

After that cool display, we walked by a Coney Island in the zoo. That was new to me, and just shows how long it's been since I've been to the zoo. We didn't get anything (because we just had dinner), but I just wanted to see "is this basically a full Coney Island," and it was. There were also a lot of different stands (hot chocolate, smores, popcorn, etc.), but we didn't stop at them because the line was long and we weren't hungry/thirsty.

Before the reptile house there was this cool bug light display.

And now we're at the reptile house. Mskate was a little weirded out by the reptiles, but I had a lot of un looking at the various snakes and turtles and others. Plus we were able to warm up. Here are the different animals I saw.

 

After the reptiles we saw some more lights.

One I really enjoyed was seeing the Rackam fountain all lit up. Mskate asked "why do they call it Rackam fountain?" and I didn't have an answer. Chances are it was whoever paid for it.

We saw more lights after the fountain, and this really cool video light display. Unfortunately it didn't show up well on video.

We did some more walking, and saw some more lights. Not much longer then we reached the turn around. There were some Rudolf displays at the loop, along with some more lights.

I know a lot of what I'm saying is "look at the lights," but that's primarily what it was. Check out some more lights, and more animated lights.

Now for some stuff I don't have pictures of (lol). One of the new things at the zoo is a Buddy's Pizza (a local chain), and while we didn't stop there, it was quite interesting to see it at the zoo. In the conference building there was a Polar Express simulator ride. I'm sure it would have been cool (I've done similar simulation rides in the past), but we didn't want to spend more money (it was $5 for a 10 or so minute show). However, we did see this cool "photos of nature" art exhibit on the 2nd floor. I didn't take pictures because that would have gotten me thrown out, but I can say they were really beautiful, even if there were some that were kind of gruesome (like a hyena chewing on a monkey's head). Yeah nature isn't always pretty. Right outside the convention center was this ice sculpture of a moose.

There was also a little ice rink and mskate wanted to check it out (because she skates, go figure). Unfortunately the line was pretty long, and they use artificial ice. We saw some more lights. There was this really cool "ornament made of lights" photo op thing, but the line was really long so we decided not to wait. We did see some cool animal print giant ornaments close to it though.

After the ornaments we walked through this cool light tunnel. Here's another selfie of us.

This was getting close to the end of this little journey. Here are the remainder of the lights.

That was our little wild lights journey. It was really fun hanging out again. I didn't take nearly as many pictures this year, because a lot of them were the same as last time (you can check the old ones out on my myspace). Hopefully you enjoy this fun time. This has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.