Pittsburgh Vacation, Day 2: The Pittsburgh Zoo and PPG Aquarium

Sunday morning dawned with a dazzling, hot sun. We were very appreciative at all the trees in the Radisson's parking lot, otherwise we would have been cooked alive! After a quick breakfast at the hotel buffet, we loaded up the car and drove to the Pittsburgh Zoo and PPG Aquarium.

I am fairly sure our GPS system was trying to kill us, as it tried to send us on several roads that either didn't exist, had a different name than on the GPS system, or were under construction. Fortunately, Dennis was driving and has a fairly good sense of direction. We arrived at the zoo without having accidentally driven to Cincinnati, which is no small miracle.

After seeing several animals in the African Plains section of the zoo, I had a very special phone call to make. I have a really cool friend who has a brother who works at the Pittsburgh Zoo. It's really awesome to have connections like that! After calling his cell phone, we met up with Jon and got an awesome behind-the-scenes tour of the primate area. Being so close to the monkeys freaked Nolan out a little, but Matt was quite interested. Michele and Jon, thank you for this amazing opportunity!


The heat was starting to get to our little red-faced boys, so we stopped for lunch and found a nice spot in the shade to cool everyone down. We decided to head to the aquarium next, because it had really nice air conditioning fish.


The Pittsburgh Zoo has an amazing children's zoo, so after cooling off in the aquarium, we headed to the playgrounds and children's areas. Matthew was very excited about the polar bear exhibit, which did not disappoint. Having a polar bear swimming above your head is a pretty awesome experience!

The boys loved the kiddie rides at the zoo. We loved the reasonable price- $1 per ride. The cars and the log ride were just their speed, and a great way to end our day at the zoo.



We left the zoo at 3:00pm, and headed back to the hotel for a rest. We had plans to visit the Duquesne Incline and Station Square that evening, and we wanted well rested boys before dinner. Hopefully our GPS wouldn't decide to send us to Toronto instead!