Topeka

Back before Beckett was around Nate and I used to take lots of little day trips to various nearby cities and towns, like Fort Scott and Atchison. We had a trip planned to Topeka that we finally were able to execute on my birthday.

First stop: Gage Park.

Gage Park has several fun attractions. We ate our picnic lunch near this old-fashioned carousel, built in 1908.

We walked through the Reinisch Rose Gardens, home of over 350 varieties of roses on over 7,000 bushes.

Gage park also has this cute train and playground of zoo creatures that I'm sure Beckett would have loved if he were a couple years older.

The Topeka Zoo is located in Gage Park, as well. Topeka's zoo is cute and small and probably will be a pretty awesome zoo in the future. (At least that's what I gathered from all the signs advertising coming attractions. "This site future home of Creatures of Darkness." "This site future hyena habitat.") But, in all seriousness, I love a good nocturnal exhibit so we might just have to return to witness the future awesomeness.

In the meantime, we enjoyed the small, quiet zoo. One thing that we loved about the Topeka Zoo is that they have posted signs telling visitors about the individual animals living there, not just about that animal species. This is actual something that Nate and I have never seen at a zoo, but that we've discussed longingly many times.

So, for example, we learned that the black bears living in the Topeka Zoo are named Sneak and Peek and that one of them likes to climb trees and the other likes to hang out in the cave.

We learned that the lions living in the Topeka Zoo are all very young and that the two female lions are sisters. Look how close we let our baby get to the lion. (He called it a cat in his baby language, by the way.)

And we learned that two of the giraffes in Topeka came from the zoo of my childhood, the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo.
We learned the names of the Orangutans, and that this one likes to wave to passing folks.
But B's favorite attraction at the zoo was probably this small aquarium. We might have to take him to a dentist's office or PetsMart or something.
The Topeka Zoo has a small, horrifically hot, but beautiful rainforest. Inside Beckett hung upside down like the bats and made friends with the flamingos.
After our trip to the zoo we went to the Kansas Museum of History, which thoroughly exceeded our expectations.
The museum covers the whole range of human history in Kansas from the native tribes, to the pioneers and the Civil War and up to today. It has a real train you can walk through, a stagecoach and tons and tons of artifacts.
Plus the museum has a fantastic kids' center where children can play a Kansas Jeopardy game, dress like a cowboy or a farmer, and pretend to live in a log cabin. If the museum was closer I think we'd go back frequently just so B could play with all the fun Kansas-themed toys.

Topeka has several other places of interest. We didn't even make it over to the State Capitol. So, if any of you local readers are looking for a short, fun day trip, I'd highly recommend Topeka. It did not disappoint.