I told you what we did the day after Christmas, and I'm showing you photos of the Potter Park Zoo's Wonderland of Lights even now. The event was about what you'd expect. There were two long lines for admission, so they could control the crowd size, though there were only a few buildings open that you could go in (besides bathrooms). These were the gift shop, the felines-and-primates house, and the bird house. The bird house was crowded enough we pretty quickly noped out, although we did go in later --- when we had the building to ourselves --- and lingered, looking at the animals. The felines-and-primates was not too crowded, although one of those weird groups of 28 or more people wandered in just after we did, so we spent less time watching the lemurs they did.
We would do three circuits around the zoo, the first the slowest of all. At that, we'd see only a handful of animals, as most of them were in winter quarters. The arctic foxes and the wolves I think were the only ones out of doors. The feline-and-primate and the bird houses had creatures to look at too, and that was about it. Which is all about as we expect, this time of year; they can't be keeping the mongooses around just in case the warm weather holds up. We didn't see the penguins, but I have the feeling they go in for the night this time of year.
The park played Christmas tunes over the PA system. This year it seemed quieter than usual and I don't know if there was a particular reason for it. We did joke that we wouldn't be able to tell when they were closing the park on us, because we wouldn't notice when they turned off the music. Indeed I'm not positive they did turn the music off at 8:00, the scheduled hour.
We didn't go driving around neighborhoods to look at the lights afterwards. It'd be easy to explain this as checking back with ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bunnyhugger's brother, or not feeling up to it after getting back to thinking about the dead goldfish. But I think it's more that neither of us thought of going. It was easier to get home and have a hot dinner.
Those are the things I suppose can't be captured in photograph form. Now let me get back to sharing pictures of the Wonderland of Lights that do come across in photos.
And now here's some of the decorated Christmas trees, which we'd learn were donated by Tannenbaum Farms.
I love how the blue lights here make my camera produce this unearthly halo all over the thing.
Some more trees, in the path approaching the felines-and-primates house.
Trivia: Dolley Madison's plan after fleeing the British capture of the White House was to get to Charles Carroll's house in Georgetown, DC. She was instead directed to a safer spot near the Great Falls called Wiley's Tavern. Source: Union 1812: The Americans Who Fought the Second War of Independence, A J Langguth.
Currently Reading: Miscellaneous comic books sent me by a friend.
