As Summer has now faded into Fall, the kids are back in school, baseball season is over, and it won’t be long until the cold winter months begin to settle in. Families are already shuffling their young athletes to practice and games, and the hectic time of the year has started to settle in.
In between Friday night football games and Saturday sleepovers, it’s as if every family is on the go. However, for those who decide that they need a relaxing day far away from this world, there’s an exotic adventure still waiting for them in Forest Park.
The St. Louis Zoo was founded in 1910, just a few years after the World’s Fair graced the community. It was constructed at a time when the STL was still considered the westernmost major city in America. Ever since then, everyone from your kids to your great-grandparents has had the opportunity to explore worlds that exist far beyond the shadows of the Arch. As the Zoo continued to get larger, it featured more and more animals that many of us had never seen… or even heard of.
The St. Louis Zoo states that their mission is ‘To conserve animals and their habitats through animal management, research, recreation, and educational programs that encourage the support and enrich the experience of the public.’
While the humane efforts toward the animal kingdom are incredibly noble, it’s the last part of their statement that is what the community has always taken home from the zoo (that, and a plastic likeness of a gorilla).
It’s the human connection that really matters most to the zoogoers; it’s the chance to watch and learn, right alongside their families. And at the St. Louis Zoo, there’s often the same wonderment in the expression of a 50-year-old as there is in a 5-year-old’s eyes.
Sure, you may show up on a day when the penguins are hiding, the Zebras are being lazy, or the monkeys are throwing feces fastballs. But even then, it all makes for a great story later.
Most of all, it makes memories. No kid ever forgets their first time at the St. Louis Zoo, and no parent forgets the first time they got to take their own kids there, either.
For all the pitfalls and potholes that are often associated with life in the Gateway City, one of the true jewels in it all is our own, local ‘animal house’. As the weather becomes a little more tolerable, the Zoo is a fun and relaxing place to hang out with the people you love. It’s open every single day of the year. And, it’s a great place to hang out with the monkeys and just go bananas. (Free of charge, of course.)