Robbie Thomas
A Trip To The Detroit Zoo
Finally, an event! Since we are dealing with Covid-19, I don’t have a great desire to wander outside the counties of Wayne, Macomb, Oakland, and St. Clair. One of the places that are still open in the Detroit area that is considered fun is The Detroit Zoo. My big sis and I floated on by the zoo. Sadly, every indoor feature (minus Buddy’s Pizza) was closed. No theaters, no special indoor events, nothing. We sadly couldn’t see the penguin house. The Detroit Zoo was due to invitation only. You had to do so by the website and print your tickets at home.
At the beginning of the trip, I thought I made a big mistake until we saw that some camels were out and about in their habitat.
With the first picture, we did see the Tigers (two of them) and were able to see some Flamingos. We also got to see the Zebras as well. We sadly didn’t get to see any Kangaroos, and we didn’t get to see much of the Red Panda. He was sleeping in his little tent. Bummer. I also wanted to see a Yak.
Here are the rest of the photos:
I got my tickets at $15 apiece with the parking at $8 (fuck!), plus two lattes at $5 apiece. At the time of this blog posting, we were dealing with Covid-19 and Michigan’s strict restrictions. You might be reading this at a time where Covid-19 isn’t a big deal. The Detroit Zoo does a Christmas Light special during the nighttime hours, and I kinda wished we went to that instead. I perhaps picked a dreary day to visit the zoo. The clouds didn’t look too happy. Also, the restrooms at the front gate are closed. We walked out, and I was going to use the restroom before we left. Sadly, I walked to a “closed” sign. Good thing I was able to hold it all the way home.
My big sister and I talked about how low-income families could not really afford a trip to the zoo. You go there, the mom, dad, and four kids getting in there will cost around $60. Plus, a whole pizza there was around $23, a slice at $5.29. We didn’t get to see the size of the slice. You’ll be leaving the zoo, possibly a hundred dollars lighter. We discussed an idea that the zoo could reserve a day for low-income families to go to the zoo without the high prices. We thought about the local or state government helping, but we both agreed that the government could be unreliable. Note that during this blog posting, they are having trouble passing the COVID bill, which also includes $10 million to Pakistan for gender programs.
We later agreed on this kind of help could be done by a major league sports team. Say, the Detroit Pistons could host a charity event were poor families could come by to the zoo on a specific summer day. And an extra bonus, some of the Piston players can be there for autographs, pictures and take a look at the animals the world has to offer. That could work.