Lois, Roger & I have been wanting to go to the Gladys Porter Zoo in Brownsville, and just haven't gotten around to it. Yesterday, we decided we would go today. Gil stayed home to run some errands, and to be at the condo when the internet/tv/phone service guy came. We have been having lots of outages. Yesterday, the internet, tv and phone were down all day until supper, and most other days Gil or Roger has to reboot the modem to get the internet going.

Today in the paper, we saw that one of the zoo's gorillas, Martha, had a baby on Jan 15, and it made it's debut to the public yesterday . Well, that cinched it - we had to go for sure now! See the baby gorilla story at http://www.brownsvilleherald.com/news/zoo-136219-species-gorilla.html.

We had a beautiful day for an excursion (it was 30 degrees at the zoo, but it was really pleasant with the trees for shade, and a number of water habitats). The Gladys Porter Zoo has no cages - the animals live in open exhibits surrounded by water.  From the website: "The Gladys Porter Zoo is an oasis nestled in the center of Brownsville, Texas. With 26 acres of lush tropical plants and some 1,600 animals, the Gladys Porter Zoo is known for its successes in breeding endangered species of wildlife." 

What a great day we had. It started off when we walked into the zoo, and the habitat right at the entrance was the gorilla habitat. And right there, front and centre, was Martha with her 10-day old baby. OMG!!! They haven't named the baby yet because they can't get close enough to tell the sex . The gorillas are an endangered species, so seeing a new baby was even more exciting. It was amazing to watch her cradle the baby, pat its back, nurse it. It also happened to be feeding time for the gorillas, so we saw them eating their raw broccoli and yams. It's amazing how human they are. After going thru the zoo, we then popped over to see them again at the end, and the mama was lying on her back having a snooze, with the baby on her belly. So amazing!!

We saw lots of other cool animals - lots of monkeys; giraffes, hippos, lions, tigers ... A very nice zoo. I took A LOT of pictures, so it was really hard to choose what to post!

When we got home, Gil was dealing with the internet service guy. After he left, we had supper, then played some more Lambsy. I have been lucky with the cards, and Gil and I have been taking turns winning. Roger gets the worst cards and is not warming up to Lambsy much. lol.

Tomorrow (Thurs), we're starting the first leg of our trip to New Orleans. We plan to stay in Rosenburg, TX the first nite.

Update at 9:00 am Thurs morning - we heard on the news this morning that Houston area got hit pretty hard with a bad storm, and that there were tornados elsewhere in Texas. Nothing here ... good we didn't leave yesterday, as we will be just outside Houston tonite. You know how I feel about tornados.
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