Hey everyone, back in the day mskate and I would go to the Detroit Zoo Wild Lights, and this year we decided to go to the Toledo Zoo Wild Lights. It's been many years (maybe around 2 decades) since I was last there, but it used to be a pretty common thing; my family would go to the Toledo Zoo when I was little, and in cub scouts we would stay the night in the zoo sometimes, but we haven't been since the cub scout sleep overs. This was a fun thing, mskate and I get a little date get away while enjoying a place that's familiar but not. I also had some vacation I had to use up, so this was a good way to use up the day. Mskate and I left for the hotel, and checked in at about 2 PM. We got suited up for the cold northern Ohio winter night, with 2 pairs of pants and 2 jackets.
Our tickets were for 3PM, and we got there at basically right when the tickets let us in. The parking lot was REALLY empty, which meant we could get a spot right close to the entrance. The Toledo Zoo has this kind of weird set-up, the parking lot and the zoo are on opposite sides of a major freeway; I assume there was a weird thing about where they could get land back in the day, so to go to the zoo one has to go through the tunnel or over the bridge. I'll get to that details later, but first something new, because the zoo has developed things on the parking lot side. It's like an artic exhibit; artic foxes, polar bears, seals, and some other things. This is also where they have the giraffe encounter, the train, and the carousel. Since we got there while it was still day some of the animals were still out. The foxes and polar bears weren't, but we got to see seal swimming and the giraffes in their inside enclosure. Even though we didn't see any polar bears or foxes, the exhibits were pretty cool; the polar bears showed off artic life and explorations, and the foxes was an artic cabin that had a working fireplace (wasn't in use, but there were signs that it has been used and signs that said to be careful).
Now it's time to go to the main zoo. As I said, we could take the tunnel or the bridge. So here's my history with this. When I was REALLY little (like 3 and 4), all they had was the tunnel, and I thought it was so cool because it was like themed to a subway and felt like I was exploring a secret passage (at least that was the faded memories I had of it). There's a story that my grandpa watched me run back and forth in it. Well when I started "really having memories" they installed a bridge and from then on the only option was the bridge (the tunnel was still there, but it was always closed). This bummed me out because while the bridge is interesting (you can see cars go under you, and there are animal prints in the wall), I grew up in a place where highway overpasses were common and "walking over traffic" was "a normal thing," but tunnels were rare so being able to go under ground in a dark tunnel was novel, and now every time I went to the Toledo Zoo "the subway" kept taunting me. Well 20 years later both the tunnel and the bridge are open, so I had to go through the tunnel. Mskate didn't really get why I was so excited to go through the tunnel, but we've been married long enough that she knows I just kind of have my things that are important to me for no real logical reason. Well going through the tunnel was kind of like when I went through alternate entrances at the zoo during covid. As an adult, there's nothing all that special about it; there is "branding" as a subway station with tile words on the wall and murals on the wall, but it is "just a walk way." If I was any other adult, I would probably be disappointed that "it's just a tunnel, there's really nothing special about it," but I am not "any other adult," and when I went through the tunnel I was in awe of "subway theming, murals, I'm under the cars, there's a service grate above me, this is what 4 year old me remembers and was denied all the times I have vivid memories of," and I finally felt closure on that. Woo hoo.
Time for some animals. Before crossing over we saw the bald eagles on the parking lot side of the zoo. They were at the bridge, so we went up the bridge ramp a little to see them. On the original animal side we saw tigers and dingoes. The tigers were really cool, they were active and walking up to the front of the enclosure where we could see them up close. Then there was one that was making noises; it wasn't like a mighty roar, but it was like some kind of grunt. I was really happy since there wasn't any music playing and it was a "natural wild sound," so I got a sample for my next audio library. That was really cool. Afterwards it started lying on the ground like a house cat, and one of the other guests said "aww, I want to play with the murder kitty." Yeah, it's really funny how similar big cats and house cats are; if we were 20 times larger we would have pet lions and tigers, or if our house cats were 20 times larger they would eat us like a lion or tiger. After them we made our way to the elephants. There was an exhibit for the hippos, but they were away, same with the otters. When we got to the elephants they were not out, but we could hear the zapping of the electric fence. That was kind of interesting, reminded me of something out of Jurassic Park, and makes perfect sense since the elephants are giant animals. The elephants had an inside exhibit where we saw a baby walking around and probably a mom eating hay. I was happy since one of my favorite zoo animals when I was little was elephants. Close by was the rhinoceroses, which also weren't outside but were in their inside enclosure. The rhino was playing with a ball, and his horn was all filed down for safety.
After the animals would have been a great time to go to the reptile house (it's right by the elephants), but unfortunately it was closed for renovations. Too bad, I think that's where the cub scout sleep overs were, and I like reptiles. Oh well, the next place we went was the museum of natural history, where they showed different taxidermy natural history exhibit things. There was also some private event going on there, which might have closed off some exhibit, or it was just an open hall. There wasn't much security to keep regular guests out, but maybe at the food station they had a wrist band. Whatever. The 2nd floor was really cool, it had a bunch of reptiles and amphibians, which was really fun. They had a poison dart frog exhibit, but the poison dart frogs were hiding. That's annoying to me because poison dart frogs are my favorite zoo animal these days; they're bright pastel colors, like the only animal that's pastel colors, and I like bright pastel colors. Oh well, there were plenty of other animals. There was also a bug exhibit, and it was pretty cool because they were like bugs from Animal Crossing. It was pretty cool. We initially went there to see the model train exhibit, but that was next door at the kid fun zone. The train was pretty cool; there was one that was all Disney themed box cars, and one that was Charlie Brown and Lucy on one of those hand cars, and they had a drive in movie set-up where they were playing The Polar Express on a portable DVD player screen. The kid building was also kind of cool, they had gunnie pigs in the craft area, and in the play trees they had some frog things that mskate knew as a child.
After the kid building we had dinner. I had pulled pork nachos and mskate had a gluten free personal pizza, where we ate at the indoor seating area. After dinner we went to the petting zoo. We could pet anything except the rabbits and chickens. The rabbit wasn't a "tiny bunny," it was a large hare, I'd guess 15 pounds. This meant we could pet the sheep and goats. I didn't pet any but mskate did. The sheep were funny looking since they were all sheered. After the petting zoo we went to the aquarium. That was really fun. There was a tank with sting rays and sharks. There was a tank with jellies. There was an anemone with clown fish, and I said "look it's nemo." There was a kid looking at that exhibit and the mom got a laugh. We also saw a leopard shark and there were these old ladies who were asking what it was, and I read the sign and she was like "oh yeah I guess it does say that, if only I could read it." She also asked me if that was the largest they get, and I said "yeah that's typically how zoos do it, they have the full grown animals on display." I don't know if she thought I worked there (I do regularly get mistaken for an employee especially when I was a teenager, but I was bundled up in my winter coat wearing a yellow beanie and my yellow night glasses so I don't think I looked like an employee), but she did ask me and I did my normal "make my best educated guess and say so with confidence." There was also a "pet a sturgeon" exhibit, and I tried to but they were down at the bottom of the tank, and if it wasn't 20 degrees outside and I didn't have my man jewelry on I would have stuck my arm down to the bottom of the tank, like I did in Tennessee. There was also this cool bioluminescence exhibit where there were these flashlight fish that were blinking on and off. I tried to get photos and video, but they didn't show on camera. There was also an octopus, that was suctioned against the window so we got to see the suction cups and it "walked" along the window which was cool. The aquarium was just so cool, maybe my favorite part of the zoo (at least at night when a lot of the animals are asleep).
It's now after sunset, and basically all the animals are sleep now. We go down to the amphitheater where Santa is and the winter slide. The slide would have been something I really liked, it's a tube slide where you ride down ice. After looking around we found the reindeer encounter. We didn't pet them, but it was kind of neat. After this, lots of lights. There were a lot of simple animation scenes, which was really fun. There was also a tree that changed colors. We walked around some more and we found an owl that was out, and when we went to a bear or fox enclosure or something, and there was a rat nibbling on the food pellets. Mskate thought that was the exhibit, but I'm like "no babe, that's vermin" and she was like "really, but he's kind of cute, like your parents hamster." Yeah, we were rodent people, but she was right, the rat wasn't mangy or scarred, and didn't get scared when I shown a light on it or approached it from the other side of the glass (which is a trait of domesticated rats), so he was kind of cute. We also went to the great ape exhibit, which was closed but had this cool statue.
This was about the end of the night, having done basically everything and having spent 4 hours at the zoo, and getting cold. We walked the bridge back, which was about what I remember, and was kind of neat walking over the traffic. Now for the difficult thing of finding a souvenir shirt for mskate. She saw one where it was "I want a hippopotamus for Christmas," but all they had were child sizes and 3XL. We looked through all the gift shops, but nothing. Leaving was pretty easy though, our car was up front and we just had to jump on the free way to get to the hotel. I was still a little hungry and mskate needed a drink, so we went to the burger king that was right next to the hotel where I got a spongebob kids meal. I got a Mr. Krabs toy, a spongebob box, and a spongebob paper crown. The rest of the night we just watched Everybody Loves Raymond.
The next day wasn't super exciting, but the hotel breakfast had this cool pancake machine. The drive home was just a drive home. Later that day I went to see Kill Bill The Whole Bloody Affair, a movie that had been living in mystery for about 2 decades. Really great to see. Well this has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.
