A bit belated, but over Memorial Day, Casey and I made the trek up to Birmingham, AL to visit with friends. Rob was in from Sacramento, CA along with Christian from Atlanta, GA. We stayed with the ever gracious hosts Rich and Laura and of course Mike and Brian were both around and it was a blast to hang out with everyone.
The reason for heading up was a big, no, make that huge, party honoring Rob’s visit. Much of that party can’t be discussed (or remembered in exact detail), so unfortunately I can’t detail it in this post.
Saturday afternoon, Casey and I had the afternoon free so we decided to check out the Birmingham Zoo.
It was the first visit for both of us to the zoo in the Ham, but we were very pleased with the experience. The zoo is located very close to downtown Birmingham. Unfortunately I was having very bad driving day, so we ended up taking the very, very scenic route to get there. I missed our turn off 459, and thus we circled around the east side of Birmingham and then came down from the North, only adding about an extra hour to the drive 🙂 …. but it was scenic.
The zoo admission is $11 for adults and all major credit cards are accepted. It took us about 2 hours to tour the whole zoo, which has a pretty impressive array of animals for a small zoo.
They have some bats:
Monkeys:
They had a big female lion that we happened to catch right at feeding time:
Some giraffes and ostriches (we missed the giraffe encounter unfortunately)
The wonderful American Bison was represented as well.
They even had Rhinos and Elephants, oh my!
There aquatic selection was limited to a cute (and photogenic) California Sea Lion.
And some scary crocodiles
At one point in the area with the bird exhibit we saw that the roosters really get the run of the place. They were just running loose through the bamboo to the side of the sidewalk.
And to highlight this post something that was pretty amazing. The thickest rattlesnake I have ever seen. This thing must have been 8 to 10 inches in diameter at its thickest point. Its head was larger than your fist. I wouldn’t want to run into this guy along the trail in the woods far from civilization.
So overall, great trip to the Ham. I would highly recommend the Zoo if you get a free afternoon. There also are Botanical Gardens next door to the zoo, but we didn’t get a chance to check them out. Maybe next trip…
Thanks to all of the out of towners and locals for another memorable vist to the Ham. As always thank you Rich and Laura for letting Casey and I crash with you guys and hang out.
