So last evening, after Margie and Katherine were both home, we packed up some bags and headed for … the Denver Zoo.
We’d signed up for a special instance of their “Bunk with the Beasts” program, where folks stay overnight at the zoo, taking after-dark tours of the animals and doing various educational things. This particular Bunk experience was enlivened by being the this weekend being the “Boo at the Zoo” event, where folks come, kids in costume in tow, and “trick or treat” at booths manned by local sponsoring businesses.
Hence, this particular evening was called “Bunk before the Boo,” and had a Halloweenish twist to it.
We all met outside the side gate of the zoo at 6 p.m., suitcases and all. We were ushered through the gate into the Gates Building, which has classrooms and meeting rooms, and to a large multipurpose room in its front. This was my first confirmation that we’d all be dossing down, barracks-style, together, as everyone claimed a stretch of wall. Hmmmm … shadows of Mumbai, only with a roof rather than tarps.
Dinner was ready at that point — copious packages of Pizza Hut pizza, plus veggies and lemonade. We also got water bottles, glow sticks, and our program IDs.
After dinner, we broke into three groups, and each of our leaders took us on a 45 minute or so zoo tour. It was a bit less focused than that — one of the volunteer leaders was very new to all this, so her group hung out with ours because she didn’t have her docent patter down. We also had problems with the night vision scopes.
Still, it was fun seeing all the critters who were out at night, or seeing how widely a hippo can yawn when Cheerios are being thrown into its mouth.
After getting back, they had the group break up into three rooms, rotating each 20 minutes. One room was about “slime,” and was supposed to feature some slimey animals (we had one toad), plus the opportunity to make your own slime (water, white glue, borax and green food coloring). That was the weakest of the rooms. The next was the best — dissecting owl pellets (sort of the equivalent of hairballs in cats, but with the bones of the various consumed critters in them, which scientists use to classify what the owls have been eating). For the more fastidious or less interested, there was a craft to make pine cone owls. The third station was “bug bingo” (with various plastic bugs) as well as giving kid a chance to see (or handle in a few cases) a scorpion, a tarantula, and a cockroach.
Snacks were available at the first and third rooms.
Somewhere in the middle of that, I went back to the big room and set up our dossing area — a large air mattress for Margie and me, a small one for Kitten, plus sleeping bags.
After the last of the stations, everyone started getting ready for bed, changing into various publicly acceptable sleeping garb, etc. There was supposed to be a late-night story that Katherine was eager for, but alas the room with the books had gotten locked up, so no story (and no attempt to improvise one).
The drapes were closed, the lights were turned off, and everyone went to sleep.
Actually, that’s pretty accurate. People were well-behaved and sleeping did occur. The room was pretty warm, so the sleeping bags were only marginally necessary. The only problem we had (and it didn’t bug me until the early morning) is that we were right next to one of the doors, which meant the traffic to/from the bathrooms — and the door opening/closing — was right by our heads. Since folks started waking up before 7 a.m. reveille, that lead to a pretty steady stream of in/outs starting around 6.
Upon officially rising at 7, we had a half-hour to get our stuff packed up and out to our cars, after which breakfast was served. Though advertised in advance as goodies from Panera, it was fairly pedestrian cereal + pancakes + egg-cheese breakfast burritos + fruit. Filling, but not particularly intersting.
We had a follow-up tour — all the kids changed into their Halloween costumes — after breakfast. It was called a scavenger hunt, was actually set up as a Q&A on different animals (and would have been suited, based on distrubution, for an all-day tour of the park), but was executed as another docent walk.
At quarter of 9, the kids were set free to get a 15 minute hop on the rest of the Boo at the Zoo crowds.
BatZ can get incredibly crowded. We heard that, and saw it first-hand. Being deep in the innards of the zoo when cut loose, we got to hit all the southern trick-or-treat locations before the crowds got around. There’s also a timing issue; though the gates opened at 9, crowds didn’t get heavy until about 10:30 or so.
Just as the weather the evening before had been pleasant, suited to a light jacket or sweatshirt (a change from the previous nights), the morning was pleasant, no outer garb necessary. In fact, it got a bit warm …
After circumnavigating the zoo, marveling at the baby red pandas climbing a tree, the cute snow leopard cubs playing with a pumpkin, etc., we left around Noon, tired, but with a full bucket o’ Halloween Candy.
I have to say that I was a bit disappointed by the Bunk with the Beasts program, though Katherine seemed to have a good time. The food was so-so, and the educational content was pretty light, but in general it just didn’t seem well-organized, in terms of the leaders/volunteers really being clear about what they were doing or what was supposed to happen next or communicating with the visitors. It all had the sense of Amateur Hour, and not necessarily in a good way. That may have been the luck of the draw or it may be something more systemic.
That said, Katherine did enjoy herself. I don’t know if we’ll do this particular trip again, but I am glad we did it at least this once.