At home in Topeka?

One of the best things about traveling the US is randomly finding amazing little places. After spending a few hours at the museum in Hays, Kansas, we knew we wouldn't make it to the Topeka Zoo before closing. I called ahead and received permission to park right there at the zoo overnight for free! We were really impressed with this zoo. While small, their collection and densely forested habitats are impressive. It was the closest we've ever been to animals like the lion and elephants, maybe 6 feet from them with only a fence (or two) separating us.

What it would look like if there were four of them...

Asher is watching the lioness. If you look closely the big daddy lion is in that far right corner. After this we walked out to that side and opened a flap in the fence to find ourselves only a few feet from him!

 VERY large bats! This is a rainforest atrium that has a tremendous amount of animals all together in a very natural looking habitat. It was fun searching for all the different animals. We also were invited to watch a training session with the adorable golden tamarin monkeys and their babies. So cute!

I was very envious of this woman who was allowed to feed the hippo right in front of us. 

*add this to my bucket list!

Baby swans

 And then we fed a giraffe! Yay! 

He gently took lettuce leaves from our hands with his footlong tongue!

As if having a great zoo wasn't enough, right next to the zoo was a huge park called "Animaland" with large cement animal sculptures and lots of new playground equipment that we haven't seen before.

The best part was the train on a real track that takes you for a 10 minute ride around the area.  This happened to be Father's Day, so he was given a free ride with the kids to celebrate.

Next to that is an aquatic center with a beach entry pool that has large foam animals for the kids to play on and an alligator slide.

And lastly, a spectacular rose garden next to that! We walked thru the garden at night and the kids saw their very first tiny flash of light....fireflies! They had fun chasing them around the garden and laughed at the ridiculousness of a bug whose bum-bum lights up. Journey said, "that sih-ye! (silly)" thru her laughter.

We walked along the track. (It only operates during certain daytime hours.)

We spent the entire day enjoying ourselves in Topeka, and would have stayed a few days had we not been pushing to get to Ohio so quickly. As we drove off we thought, hmmm, Topeka would make a nice place to live.