The Awesomeness of the St. Louis Zoo

This is a great place to people watch

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Today the temperatures in Saint Louis was in the high 50's, low 60's. This is unheard of this time of year.

Being that it was cloudy, yet warm, me, my wife, her mom and our kids decided to take advantage and go to the zoo. I absolutely love the Saint Louis Zoo. It's one of the best zoos in the entire country.

First of all, the admission to enter is free. I think this may be the only big time zoo in the US that is free to get into to. This is so awesome. Every other zoo charges 20 dollars, at the very least, to just get in. I love that you can just walk right into the Saint Louis Zoo, free of charge. Sure, memberships cost money and if you don't have a membership, you have to pay for train rides and the carousel and their Children's Zoo, but the fact that you can walk in there and not spend a dime and see all the wonderful animals they have is great. You don't have to ride the train or carousel or do the Children's Zoo, those are added bonuses. You can spend hours there and you don't have to open your wallet once. That's fantastic.

Second, the animals they have there are so cool. When you enter through the main entrance, anyway you pick to go, you have endless options on what you want to see. Go left and that leads you to Rivers Edge. This is a newish area in the zoo, but man, it's excellent. You walk through and you see rhinoceroses, laughing hyenas, capebarys, huge fish and their main attraction, African elephants. The African elephants are a must see if you go to the zoo. It's incredible to see such a majestic animal that close. There's even a baby elephant, Priya, that's adorable. Rivers Edge is wonderful. If you choose to go right at the main entrance, you walk past some humongous turtles, the sea lion exhibit and that leads you to my favorite spot, all the apes. There's so many of them and they are very playful. These apes put on shows for visitors. They play and tumble and jump from tree to tree. It's tremendous. It's so cool, much like the elephants, to see these evolved animals up close and personal. Walking past the ape exhibit, you get to two newer spots in the zoo, the Polar bear habitat and Puffin Cove. The Polar bear habitat is very new, opening this past summer. It's awesome. They have one bear and its exquisite to see. The bear is huge and white as snow. It kind of walks back and forth, but sometimes, it jumps into the water and puts on a spectical. It's cool. Puffin Cove has been around for awhile and they recently renovated it. It is really cool. There's puffins, little baby penguins and King penguins. You are so close that you can touch them, you're not allowed to, but you are that close. If you double back, you wind up in Big Cat Country. This is an awesome habitat as well. Cheetahs, leopards, tigers and lions are the first things you see. As you walk further, there's camels, zebras, giraffes, various types of deer and antelopes and even kangaroos. I love seeing all these exotic, majestic animals in a corner of this enormous zoo. There's another habitat near Big Cat Country that specializes in reptiles. I'm not the biggest fan of snakes and alligators and crocodiles, so I kind of skirt this spot. Very near the reptiles is a huge bird house with various species of birds. Closer to Rivers Edge, on the exact opposite side of all the spots I just mentioned, there's a very big and very educational insectarium. My son loves this part. He can look at insects without fear of them getting out and he can hear the cool noises they make. There's an attached butterfly house that's pretty great as well. Walking through the zoo, you see flamingos, swans, there's some specific bear and panda habitats, pretty much almost any animal you could hope to see in a zoo. Finally, there's a free playground right by the zoo that has humongous animal sculptures that the kids can play on before or after your visit to the zoo. It's a really cool playground that, not only my son loves, but I love too. It's a ton of fun.

The Saint Louis Zoo lives up to its reputation and then some. It's probably my favorite spot in all of Saint Louis. I love that it's free, I love all the variety and I love that it's been around forever and has barely changed. It's a great, great Saint Louis staple. Check it out on your next trip and if you're from Saint Louis, check it out more often. I guarantee you haven't seen it all, no matter how many times you've been there.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man podcast. Due to his hairness, Ty gets mistaken for a pants wearing ape by many of the zoo guests. Learn all about how evolved Ty is by following him on twitter @tykulik.