Our very first stop was at the DeYoung Family Zoo, which is just over the state line in the U.P. and came highly recommended by the woman who cuts Bob's hair. I think it's basically just some guy's personal collection of animals on farmland in the middle of nowhere. They have lions, tigers, bears, alligators, monkeys—all the zoo standards. It is a completely bizarre place. I pictured it as some sort of hole-in-the-wall, and we would be the only ones there. I certainly did not expect to be driving through the typical U.P. nothingness and suddenly come upon a parking lot full of 50 cars or more. The place was packed, in the middle of the day on a Tuesday!
Most of the animals are rescues from circuses, etc., and I have to say, some of the habitats actually looked nicer than the ones at the Milwaukee zoo, if only because they were bigger and more natural. They were basically just caged-in sections of Upper Peninsula wilderness.
Uncharacteristically, Elsa was not enthused about the place and mostly wanted to leave. I think this had everything to do with the god-awful smell and the swarming flies. I gained new respect for the Milwaukee zoo's ability to keep both of those problems somewhat under control! Elsa wasn't crazy about the animals at the State Fair last year either, for the same reasons. Good thing this kid wasn't born on a farm.
But the really neat thing about this zoo was how you could get so up-close-and-personal with the animals (stinkyness and all). We got to walk right up and feed lettuce to "Happy" the hippo. It was the coolest thing to watch him open up his gigantic mouth and then pop a big lettuce leaf right into it! These pictures really don't do it justice. It was definitely Bob's and my favorite part of the zoo. (I didn't notice that his teeth appear to be filed down until I looked at these pictures later.)
Elsa, on the other hand, was very reluctant to feed him, but we finally talked her into it, as you can see.
Elsa's favorite part was the Baby Animal Parade. Every day, the zoo workers bring out all the babies that they currently have, and the zoo visitors can actually hold them and pet them. Here's Elsa attempting to hold the baby monkey. He was difficult to hold, scrambling all around on people.
The baby hyena was a little easier to hold but surprisingly heavy.
Everybody's favorite baby was this wallaby, who stayed in her own little pouch while we all held her and petted her.
She was definitely the calmest of the bunch, so Elsa liked that. This was also just before the zoo closed (although we didn't realize that, because we forgot about the time change after we crossed the state line!). So the crowd had really thinned out and we almost had this little girl to ourselves.
Claire was bummed that she wasn't big enough to hold the wallaby.
One of the alligators. I wondered where these guys go during the U.P. winter.
I found this guy fascinating—half horse, half zebra, maybe?
Hand-painted signs and "non-traditional" name spellings seemed to be the order of the day.
The zoo was very near to Stephenson, Michigan, which is where Bob's grandparents on his mom's side were born and where they are now buried. Bob had never been to their graves, so after we left the zoo, we stopped at the tiny town's cemetery. We just drove around in there until we found some Voelker headstones.
Then we went on to Escanaba, where we had a U.P. staple: Pasties (pronounced pass-tees). Yummy!
Claire wasn't quite sure what to make of her ham and cheese pasty at first.
But after careful examination ...
She actually liked it!
The car ride on Day 1 was a little ridiculous. Neither of the girls ever fell asleep in the car, and Claire ended up getting nightmarishly crabby. (WHY do my children refuse to sleep in the car like normal kids?) Even movies don't entertain Claire—she gets bored and restless after about a half an hour, no matter what they're watching. We were going to just stay in Escanaba for the night, but the U.P. edition of the Michigan State Fair was in town, so all the hotels there were booked. Fortunately, with stomachs full of pasty, everybody was on better terms, so we drove on to Newberry and ended up checking into a hotel there at around 9 p.m. Michigan time. This put us virtually next door to two of the things we wanted to see on Day 2: The Oswald Bear Ranch and Tahquamenon Falls.
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