My Penguin Encounter at the St. Louis Zoo

Yesterday, the 27th of August I went to the St. Louis zoo, where there was an amazing penguin exhibit. I really liked this exhibit because all of the penguins had their own society, and it was really interesting watching them in their own little groups. I gave names to the individual penguins. Here are some pictures (and descriptions).

Here I am at the entrance to the penguin area, right behind me are the Humboldt penguins, indigenous to areas in South America, like Peru.


Here is a little penguin I like to call Albert, Albert is an extremely adventurous penguin, you will see many pictures of him later in my blog.

This is Albert, again. He is now quite sad because his favorite seat was just taken-up by a notorious seagull-thing know as Stuart.



Here is Albert once again, he's now having an all-out war against Stuart (the bigger, uglier, and closer one) the other seagull-thingy is known as the elusive Joe, known to snatch food out of unsuspecting penguin's mouth's.



Here is Albert, with his best friend Nick celebrating their victory in battle against the "forces of evil!"


Albert has now decided to go for a quick victory swim in the little penguin pond.



"Maybe my quick swim wasn't such a good idea" Albert is tentativly thinking right now. I think that he has a pretty good point.


At last he has made the leap of faith into the near-freezing waters and conquered all fear of the cold.


This is Nick again, curious to see where Albert has gone off to now. Little does he realize that Albert is swimming right below him.



Albert has gotten out of the penguin pool, and he and Nick have decided to take a little walk around their enclosure. Now I will leave to see some emperor penguins, as well as puffins, and a weird mutated duck-thing.

After I left the Humboldt exhibit I went on to go see the Emperor penguins, plus I saw some puffins, and an Eider Duck, which looks like a duck with an oddly shapen mushroom for a beak. I hope you enjoy these pictures (and, as I mentioned earlier, descriptions):

This is another of my favorite birds, the puffin. This puffin, however is very curious, I have named him Claude.


Here, floating absent-mindedly on the water is Simon. Simon is an Eider duck (the fungus-beak one I mentioned earlier). I call him Simon because he reminded me of Simon Cowell, he just looks annoyed at the world.



Here is the last picture, it is of an Emperor penguin baby whom I like to call Frank. Frank is an incredibly energetic penguin, who is always running around, looking for fun.

I hoped you liked my penguin, puffin, and weird seagull-thing pictures. In my opinion the best pictures were the ones of Alfred and friends. I liked them because they actually gave me some idea as to what a day would be like in the life of a penguin. Please comment on what your favorite picture was.

Various Sights Along the Road

On our way to Cooperstown, NY we saw some pretty strange sights. On our MapQuest directions number 11 was turn right at Banana Dan’s. So, we’re in the RV wondering; what on earth is “Banana Dan’s”? After about 12-13 minutes we see this massive sign saying “Banana Dan’s” towering above us.

My Dad, being who he is, immediately decided to play us the Harry Chapin song 30,000 pounds of Bananas. It’s a very entertaining song all about a delivery man delivering 30,000 pounds of bananas, but he loses control going down a steep hill in Scranton, PA, and the truck crashes! My favorite part is the chorus, when you’re hearing Harry Chapin with a light and more cheerful voice. Then this anonymous voice says “hit it big John” and to finish off the chorus you just hear the incredibly deep voice of “Big John” who, every chorus, sings “…of bananas”!

At last, once we have finally reached our destination, we set up camp at Shadow Brook campground (where we have been staying the past two nights). As soon as we got there we just had to try out the pool. The pool was great, there were even cool pool toys. In particular there was a really cool rocket that I kept tricking Simon with. The special thing about the rocket was if you threw the rocket about two feet, it would go about six feet. Simon really wanted the rocket so he could go diving for it, so I’d throw the rocket right next to him, but it really went about five feet behind him. When he went under water to go and pick it up, I quickly swam over to go pick it up while he wasn’t looking. We repeated this process six, or seven times before my mom started yelling at me, so I just handed it to him.

I think there will be lot’s of weird stuff throughout the year, like “Banana Dan’s” and I can’t wait to see it all (and, of course, blog about it). Here are some cool pictures, as well as a link to the song “30,000 Pounds of Bananas”!

The Flight of my Life

About two or three days ago my friend Matthew and I went on this MASSIVE zip-line known as, The Sun Mountain Flyer! To even get to the start of the ride you must first ride a 15 minute chair lift to the top of the mountain. Then you have to climb a very tall tower to get in a harness. After some tattooed teenagers strap you into your harness, you’re all ready to go!

A first I was very scared to get on, but after seeing some other kids go down I was finally persuaded. Once they buckle you in you’re just waiting for them to release the doors so you can go. This, in my opinion was the scariest part, waiting, just waiting for the drop off the platform into the open air. The ride was unbelievable; you’re soaring at about 60 miles per hour, on a zip-line, down a mountain! On the ride it was really cool to look down at the scenery, and think “O-M-G, I’m going down a mountain at 60 mph, 50 feet above the actual mountain”!

In retrospect I think I should’ve been more open to trying it out, even if it looked really scary at first, because once I tried it I had a really great time. Here is the advertisement:

The Penguin Staff

This year for my birthday my parents gave me (among other things) a hiking stick. This was no ordinary hiking stick, for this was a hiking staff, crested by the figure of a penguin! This majestic creature, atop my staff is a true beauty, below is a picture of me with it on Little Ball mountain.

So far I have only used it once, while climbing Little Ball Mountain in Vermont. I hope to use it again next week with some of my best friends, Thomas and Matthew on a 6 mile hike to a waterfall, also in Vermont. I wonder when I will get other opportunities along the big adventure to use my Penguin staff; I’m looking forward to a lot of climbing and hiking, so I can really get to know it.

Ever since the age of 3 I have been fascinated by both polar bears, and penguins. The original reason for my love of both Arctic, and Antarctic animals, is when I was three, and I was given a polar bear stuffed-animal by my Grandpa. I didn’t actually like penguins until I was six or seven, after I saw the movie March of the Penguins. Once I had started liking penguins, there was just no stopping, I became so addicted to them that the next summer at day-camp I wrote a song about penguins, and preformed it in front of about 100 kids! The song went something like this:

“First you waddle to the left, then you waddle to the right,
Then you boogie, boogie, boogie, ‘til the broad daylight,
Do the penguin and turn yourself around,
Now it’s time to make the penguin sound:
First you squawk, squawk, squawk,
then you cock-a-doodle-doo,
Now you can teach your friends to do the penguin too!”

Tonight at 6:54:32 and a tenth of a second, it will be 09/8/7 6:54:32.1! At this precise time I will perform “The Penguin Dance” as a salute to penguins world-wide. Until then I’ll have to find another way to appease the penguin and polar bear gods. If, by any chance you have a spare goat, or other livestock please send it to me, as a sacrifice, until then I’ll stick with sacrificing my vegetables.