A Photo Essay of the Chattanooga Zoo

By now, if you have read my blog at all, you probably know that I am a huge animal lover. So when trying to decide upon something to do this past weekend I naturally chose the zoo. The Chattanooga Zoo is only a short drive from where I live and it is also extremely cheap (just $8.95 for adults). Even though it’s cheap, that does not mean that there is a small variety of animals. There are actually quite a lot and it took me about an hour and a half to venture through the whole zoo.

Right after entering the zoo, I spotted some camels. You can actually ride these for just $5, but there is a set of stairs that you must go up to do so. While the camel ride isn’t accessible, it was still fun to watch them. One of the camels was not very happy when I was there and he kept trying to kick and he was growling as well. I have never heard a camel make those noises and I would not want to ride it while it was that agitated. This fiasco was pretty entertaining though.

My favorite animals are definitely the chimpanzees. They are so human-like in their actions. I could honestly just sit there and watch them interact all day and be perfectly happy. Later, I spotted some tamarins and other monkeys as well. Two of them kept picking at each other’s backs. Probably picking out bugs… Who knows. It was funny to watch them do this because they were really helping each other out and taking turns. I love monkeys so much. If anyone reading this feels like buying me one, I won’t resist. Just sayin’…

However, I will certainly resist all of the animals that I saw next: snakes, spiders, and even a gator. Snakes are my biggest fear, but for some reason I enjoy looking at them as long as there is a thick piece of glass between us. There were both venomous and non-venomous snakes, big and small.

Toward the end of my visit, I stumbled upon a petting zoo section. It is wheelchair accessible to go into the area where the goats are, but the last time I tried this a few of them tried to attack me. I’m not even kidding. I think that they were just scared of my wheelchair and didn’t really know what it was. So needless to say, I did not pet any goats. Haha! In this same area there is also a buffalo, some pigs, and many peacocks frolicking about. The peacocks were beautiful and several of them had their feathers fully spread out. I have never seen a peacock with its feathers open so this was very exciting for me and I may or may not have went a little camera crazy.

My day at the zoo was even more fun than I expected it to be. There weren’t any lions and tigers and bears (oh my!), but all of the other amazing animals make it a great zoo. If you are in the Chattanooga area and are an animal lover like I am, be sure to visit the Chattanooga Zoo.