On our last mini vacation to Atlanta, Georgia, Zoo Atlanta was our last major stop, as we went there after checking out of our Airbnb. The first time I went was about 10 years ago, but we took the kids about 2 years ago, so this wasn’t new for anybody except my mother, who came along with us.

My son Alex has gotten into the phase where he wants me to hold him almost all the time, and he was killing me during this little Atlanta vacation. We didn’t have room to bring a stroller, so by the time we got to Zoo Atlanta, I made sure we rented one. Unfortunately, Lily, wanting to be the baby she used to be, wanted in as well. She technically fit, but her weight was a gigantic problem. It was killing me out in the sun trying to push both of them in the stroller, so we had to hurt her little feelings by making her get out and walk.

Zoo Atlanta is one of the best zoos in the Southeast. It’s not super huge in terms of land area, but they’ve got plenty of animals all over the place. My wife Jessica was very disappointed that the panda bears were no longer on display. I’m not sure if they had some kind of falling out with China or not, but it seems they’re building a new panda exhibit, and they’ll have the Chinese bears back sooner rather than later.

It wasn’t the greatest trip to the zoo for us, however. The sun was brutal and was making everybody feel sick, and we encountered a good bit of bad luck. For example, the kids wanted to feed the giraffes, and just seconds after this picture was taken, the giraffe walked away. They gave us some tokens to redeem later in the day, but when we came back, the line looked like a roller coaster queue. I ended up putting the tokens in my pocket and just hoped I’d remember to use them the next time we’re down in Atlanta.

We spent our last moments there in the gift shop, and I was about ready to leave, to be honest. I did find this parrot hat that I thought was funny, and I guess it was a good thing it wasn’t very comfortable. If it had been, I probably would have bought it at the beginning and worn it around the entire zoo like a weirdo. Lol.