Remember that time I posted on Instagram about taking a weekday trip to the zoo?  It was way out of my comfort zone to go without Hubs, but we made it happen and I was so glad!

The North Carolina Zoo is one of our favorite day trips to take with the boys and when I realized how full many of our weekends were becoming this Fall, I grabbed my sister who was tracked out of school for October and we all made the trip.

We all came back exhausted, but in the very best way.

A post shared by Mary Leigh (@livewellplaytogether) on Oct 10, 2018 at 1:28pm PDT

Visiting the NC Zoo in the Fall

This post is going to be pretty photo heavy thanks to my sister and her phone camera.  I actually brought my camera, but once we got everything loaded in the stroller, I decided last minute to leave it in the car.  I knew I’d need to keep a pretty close eye on Little, even with help from my sister.  That and, I knew we would need to keep it moving to get to see all the animals we wanted to see and make it out for a late lunch.

I just wanted to enjoy the day with the boys whether or not I was able to get great photos to share.  And it turns out, my sister’s phone takes pictures just fine.

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Like we always do, we parked on the Africa entrance side of the zoo.  Our hope was to be able to feed the giraffes, but they weren’t at the feeding station on this particular day.

Of course, that didn’t stop us from stopping by to watch them.

The giraffes, zebras, and ostriches are together (and the zebras are Little’s favorite animals) so we always try to make a stop to see them first thing.

The NC Zoo in Asheboro is the largest natural habitat zoo in the country, and I think you can see that from many of these photos.  It is truly beautiful.

Of course, there are times where the kids might like the animals a little more close, but it is breathtaking to see them walking around in such large, well maintained habitats.

Next, we were off to see the elephants and rhinoceroses.  If you look closely in the back right of this photo, you can can see two of the rhinos at the zoo.  We even got to see one of the new baby rhinos, which was really cool.

Because Little loves animals so much, we are sure to follow the NC Zoo on social media and I always let him know when there is a new animal born there.  And he always looks out for them when we visit. 

If this picture doesn’t just melt your heart, I don’t understand you.

After seeing many of the animals in Africa, we took the tram up to the opposite side of the zoo to the North America exhibits.  The Polar Bear is one of my favorites and he’s one of the first animals on the far end of North America in the zoo’s Rocky Coast exhibits.

It was tough to get a great photo of him this visit, but we had so much fun watching him play.  Every other time we’ve visited the zoo, he has been swimming – and we love it.  But it was extra fun to watch him wrestle with his toys – trying to keep them under water and catch them when they would come up.

I’ve never seen him stay in one place for so long and it was cool to watch him playing around.

Of course the grizzly bears and black bears were also ready to play.  I don’t think I’ve seen them so up close before and I was glad my sister was able to get some great pictures of them.

Finally, we stopped by the “prairie” exhibit in North America and got to see lots of bison and elk.  I don’t remember seeing them on our last visit, so Little thought they were really cool. 

We ended up skipping a lot of the “extras” this visit since we needed to be sure to miss rush hour heading home.  Our favorite things we skipped this time were the playgrounds and the merry-go-round, but we gave Little the choice to see more animals or play and he chose animals.  I’m hoping that if we get back to the zoo more often, we can spend sometime enjoying those other things rather than trying to get to all the animals in one day.

Or maybe not.  Little does love his animals….

This was our first visit to the NC Zoo where we drove up in the morning and back in the afternoon.  We usually head up the day before and spend the night.  And I’ve never been on a trip like this without Hubs.  To be honest, I wasn’t sure how it was going to go.

But, we made lists of things (mostly snacks) to pack, packed our diaper bag carefully, grabbed our stroller and water bottles and just decided to go for it.

We had a few hiccups, which if you have kids, you know is TOTALLY normal and expected, but overall, we had a really GREAT day.  Little was over the moon to see all his favorite animals and the Littlest handled being in the stroller for a good chunk of the time like a champ.

And of course both boys napped hard on the ride back home.

It was such a great reminder to me that it’s good to get out of our comfort zone sometimes.  Because even though I was completely exhausted afterwards, our trip made me way more confident in my ability to take the boys on more adventures.  I’m already thinking of our next adventure when my sister is tracked out (because let’s be real, we had a great time, but it still would have been REALLY hard to be by myself the whole day).

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We loved our Fall trip to the NC Zoo.  It ended up being a cloudy day when we went and the temperature was really mild.  We’ve been in the summer, too, and even though the zoo does a GREAT job of providing ample shade on the trails, it can still be really hot.

According to one of the concession staff though, the early/milder part of winter is one of the best times to visit the zoo (of course, to each their own) since it’s cooler and not humid.  And we’ve never been in the winter – so I’m thinking we might be taking another zoo trip before the year is done.

I hope so, anyway.

If you’re ever in North Carolina or withing driving distance of the North Carolina Zoo, I HIGHLY recommend it.  We love it every single time we go.

What’s the last adventure you’ve been on?  Tell me below!