Winter Wildland at CMZ 2009

We made our annual trek to Cheyenne Mountain Zoo to see the Christmas lights last night. As I was making dinner I got to thinking about how warm it was that afternoon and decided that it would be a good night to venture to the zoo to see their Christmas light displays. Evidently everyone else in town thought the same thing as I think it took us almost an hour to get into the parking lot, find a space, and then actually get past the entrance gate into the zoo. With the predicted cold temps and snow tonight, it was worth the extra hassle of going last night with the crowds.

Giraffes welcome everyone at the entrance to the main parking lot. You can even see a couple more on the hill above that are in the African Safari exhibit area.   
One of the older signs that they used as the “Electric Safari” logo before they renamed the exhibit to “Winter Wildland.” This area is right next to the lion exhibit. The lions were out in the yard laying on the big rock in the middle and were quite displeased with the number of onlookers with their brightly flashing cameras. Daddy lion rumbled noisily quite regularly. some fun new flowers and 3D bumblebee lights appeared near the bears this year. The Rocky Mountain exhibit lookout tower is lit up with stars.
The wolves actually were howling last night, which was unusual. Maybe the large numbers of noisy people were disturbing them? I think that is the first time we have heard them; they are usually extremely quiet and stay out of sight. Marty the Moose’s likeness in lights was another new creation this year. We ran into Santa outside The Loft. Sarah has refused to go anywhere near Santa again this year. She says “I’m shy” and won’t even look at him at every event Santa is at. Even the second floor of the mall looking down at the Santa area on the first floor is too close for her comfort LOL And we ran into Mrs. Claus near the skyride as we were walking to the entrance on our way out. A beautiful view of the city skyline down below near Moose Lodge.

I had some questions about the settings I used to get my pictures at the zoo after I shared the photos with The Crew, so I put together a little tutorial. You can check it out here at Scrapbookgraphics.