Oregon Zoo In Love

The folks at the Oregon Zoo want Valentine's Day to be special. So they put red and pink cardboard toys in the animals' exhibits and paint hearts on the glass windows, perhaps hoping it'll make the place lovely and magical for all the couples who visit the zoo on their Valentine's Day dates.

Buuut since the zoo's gates close at 4pm in the wintertime and since it's super cold out (there's still patches of snow on the ground, in fact), I've counted about thirty other visitors in the entire complex. Well! Happy Valentine's Day to me, because I get to see all the animals with ease, and have a mere .013% chance of being run over by a stroller! AND THE LION CUBS ARE OUT!

Please forgive the next nine thousand lion cub pictures. If you want other animals, scroll waaaay down.

Over in Polar Bear land, at first it looked as if the bears couldn't care less about the so-called most romantic day of the year. One looked awake and alert; the other just wanted to snooze.

"Hey, so... you want to play or something? ...No?"

"Guess I'll just wash my paws, then."

"...and play with this super cool garbage can..."

"Hmmph."

But THEN--

Mr. Sleepyhead woke up...

They both walked around for a bit...

And thennnn -- this happened...

SO CUTE. Also, that's the most action I've ever seen from either one of them. (Maybe they were digging the cold weather?)

In the end, the Polar Bears seemed to be the most affectionate animals at the zoo that day. The tigers were being their normal layabout selves....

"Want to join me for dinner tonight?"

"No."

"Want to go on a walk?"

"No."
"Want to scale the fence and eat that girl who's taking pictures of us?"

"Maybe later."

The Hippos were awake, for a change. Well, sort of?

Oh, hey, remember when I mentioned the Valentinesy window paint? Here's some of that:

It's paint, I promise. I mean, I'm pretty sure it is-- Uh... quick, look over here! More cute animals!

So... polar bears being the possible exception, I don't think the animals had any clue what day it was that day.

But I did. And the zoo was empty and the animals were adorable, and Valentine's Day at the Zoo gets four paws up from me!

(Previous posts in this series: Oregon Zoo In Fall, Oregon Zoo In Late Fall, Oregon Zoo In Lights, and Oregon Zoo In Winter)