This day, Tuesday, was the "worst" weather of the trip. Pretty chilly and off/on rain for big chunks of the morning and afternoon. Luckily, I managed to remember to pack enough warm clothes for us so we were pretty okay.
We started the day with the zoo and it was pretty impressive. Not so much for the animals, but the scenery. It was so green and wooded and the zoo felt like you were more on a nature preserve than a zoo. All the animals had really big habitats, and in 4 hours we walked almost 3 miles. Yes, the zoo was big and yes, we were there longer than my boys have ever spent anywhere.
The zoo had a few interesting animals on exhibit too. They had a small farm area with cows, pigs, sheep and a few goats. Strange, but I guess city kids don't regularly see such animals. And, even though we didn't see them, they had a small herd of elk, too. There were four white wolves, a stellar sea eagle and 2 komodo dragons which were super impressive. The zoo was also proud of a brand new baby gorilla but even though she was out on exhibit with her mother, they were not visible in the enclosure.
After our time at the zoo, it started raining (again) and we were hungry. We found a little taco joint and got our food to go. It was time to carb load and rest ourselves before the ultimate event of our vacation, the Copa America soccer game between Argentina and Bolivia.
Now, Ross should really write the next part, because soccer isn't my thing (I mean, I just don't get it. The whole thing just feels like a giant time suck and all that anticipation for nothing? Maybe that's why everyone does freak out when a goal is scored, because they get so little out of their 90 plus minutes of watching). Anyway, the jersey's were broken out, the jumping and skipping (Elliott and Wyatt) had started and that dad of ours just couldn't stop smiling.
Expectations were high because, well, it's Lionel Messi and because Messi had scored a 19 minute hat-trick the previous Saturday. Aren't you impressed with my soccer lingo? Hat-trick? Yeah! We got to the Seahawks stadium a mere 2 hours before the start of the match to see some of the festivities. Lots of crazy and drunk Argentine's chanting in the streets, and a few Bolivian fans spread out in the crowd. I'm pretty sure that it was at least 80% Argentina fans to 20% Bolivian fans, and of all those Argentina fans, at least 80% of them were wearing some kind of Argentina or Messi jersey. I wore a blue scarf.
The short version: Argentina won. Messi played the second half. He didn't score but he had some penalty/corner/whatever kicks and nutmeged the goalie (More soccer terminology for you). Everyone in the whole stadium, including my husband, got their phones out to record anything that guy might do that had the potential to be amazing. That was pretty funny to watch. My boys left happy. Wyatt drank almost 2 full 32 oz. diet cokes (The NFL does contracts with Coke, not Pepsi, hooray!) and used the bathroom about every 12 minutes. We got some great souvenirs. The boys were excellent, even Quinn who struggles to be excellent. But, watching soccer laying on my lap was about the same as watching TV at home laying on my lap, and he had a box of skittles so he was at peace with the world.
That night, after finding an open late gelato shop near our apartment, we all went to bed around midnight. Exhausted. But, ready to go home the next morning.
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