topeka

after our late night at the ballpark, we got up and headed to topeka to visit my uncle rob and aunt blake (one of my cousins, bekah, and her friend darren joined us at the end of our visit). it was on this trip that we discovered that the navigation system was avoiding toll roads and resolved that. thankfully, we still made it there in time to meet them at the topeka zoo.

if you are ever in topeka, you really should visit the topeka zoo. not only is it an enjoyable and scenic zoo, but it is part of a large complex (gage park) with lots of other things to see and do - as you will see in the rest of this post.

the zoo was not huge, but a nice size for walking with kids. the animals were beautiful and quite active. madelyn was pretty impressed that one of the orangutans was making kiss-y faces at her and that there was a tiger and a bear playing high up in trees (in separate exhibits of course). there was a topical/rain forest building that was just a large open exhibit where you had to watch for animals in the trees and flying over head. madelyn liked getting close to the flamingos since they are fenced off at our zoo.

after checking out the zoo we went out to the park outside the gate to eat lunch. and uncle rob and aunt blake had prepared an impressive spread for a picnic lunch if you ask me! i couldn't believe that they had gone through so much trouble (thanks, again). mason woke up from his nap some time during lunch and got to have a little snuggle time with rob and blake. over lunch we caught up and shared family memories. madelyn was pretty surprised to learn that uncle rob was big pop's big brother. uncle rob showed her a picture of big pop on his phone and asked madelyn if she knew who it was - she just mouthed "big pop" with a smile. it was as if she recognized him but didn't understand why uncle rob would have his picture. that was when uncle rob explained that big pop was his little brother just like mason was her little brother.

right across the street from the zoo is a little train station offering train rides around the complex. matt and i had ridden the train around 8 years ago on another visit to topeka and when uncle rob sent me a picture from that trip matt didn't even recognize us! we knew that this was something madelyn would enjoy; there is even a little tunnel to go through.

while handing over her token for the ride to the conductor/engineer it fell on the ground and he bumped her head when he bent down to pick it up. to make up for the bump, he offered to let her pull the whistle after our ride and that more than made up for any suffering on her part.

as a final stop on our topeka tour, madelyn got to ride the carousel (you might notice that madelyn rides a lot of carousels on this trip). she was starting to stare off with exhaustion, but perked right up when she saw where we were headed.

as an extra bonus there were wizard of oz characters 'cut-outs' (i really don't know what you call the things you stick your head through for photos) in front of the carousel.

we had a great visit and were really happy that we were able to find a time that worked for everyone. love.