zoo-4-2

we went to the zoo! a long standing tradition from the early days of our courtship...when we used to go quite a bit in memphis because of the "free day" that neatly coincided with our respective days off. brian lived right down the street and i liked the change of scenery.
we'd been meaning to go, but waiting was a good thing...with summer gone and all the kids back in school (and too early in the year for fieldtrips), and a weekday to boot, the place was practically deserted.

so we had the place to ourselves and a nice early fall day to roam around and watch the animals. the portland zoo is pretty different from the memphis zoo so it's nice that they have totally different animals. i was giddy all day from watching elephants and monkeys and tigers, and enjoying the developing pallete of fall descending on the landscape. i wish i could have pet some goats, but other than that it was a good time.

it sure was cold by the end of the day. the grey clouds rolled in off the ocean and the chinese buffet was closed. we hit the powells book sale and got a few things, then we ended up going to chino saigon which has the benefit of being closer to home and a change of pace. yum. after all that though i was totally tired...

it's nice to do something together for a whole day that has not been tained with proximity to errands, work or school. there probably won't be too many chances to do fun stuff all that often, at least not once school starts. not to mention the weather is going to get really unpleasant very very soon.