Nashville Zoo

I took the boys to the Nashville Zoo on our first full day in Nashville, as it was a Sunday, and many of the other attractions that I wanted to explore were closed or had shortened Sunday hours. Zoos are great for days like these, because most zoos are open every day.

Connor's new pose for pictures: eyes closed, tongue out

The Nashville Zoo is a good size...it's big enough to have a great variety of animals, but still small enough to see it all in one day. However, a large portion of the zoo is set up along a trail, so once you have started upon it, there is nothing to do but finish it. Lex fell asleep about halfway through this trail, and Connor was getting tired and wanted to leave, so I basically had to drag him along behind me as we finished the trail, paying no attention to the animals that we passed as we went.

But, before that, we had a great time!

Hyacinth Macaw
This is my new favorite color

There is a huge wooden Jungle Gym that we explored for almost an hour, and we didn't even come close to exploring the whole thing.


We rode the carousel.

We went through the "Unseen New World" building that housed reptiles, fish, frogs, snakes, birds and the like.

The Meerkat exhibit was awesome.
There was a tube you could crawl through and then poke your head into a bubble right in the middle, just like you were another little meerkat peeking out of your hole.
And, dang but those things are cute!

My favorite part was the bamboo forest. The zoo is actually growing an entire forest of bamboo, so the part of the trail that travels through the bamboo forest is aptly named the "Bamboo Trail." Being in a forest made of bamboo is such a foreign experience to me, and I greatly enjoyed it. I would like to grow some bamboo in my yard, but I don't really think it would survive the winter cold. Anyways, this is where we found the ring tail lemurs, which is something that I specifically wanted to show Lex, given his love for Johnny Lemur. However, he feel asleep approximately 26 seconds before we got to the lemurs. Isn't that the way it always goes?

Lemurs are way bigger than I expected.
These things were as big as Lex, PLUS the long tail!

Travel Tip: I used our Columbus Zoo membership to score free parking, 50% of admission, and 10% off at all the gift shops and snack stands.