I went to a place this week that I hadn’t been to in almost ten years. We went to the Jacksonville Zoo. Things have changed a lot in the last ten years. I was perusing their website and was scoping out the new exhibits trying to plan our visit, and I was pleasantly surprised.

One exhibit caught my attention, though — Dinosaurs. One of my daughters asked me, “Didn’t they see the movies, dinosaur exhibits never end well”. All joking aside, this exhibit was exceptionally cool. They had you walk to the front of the property where they created a path through the wetlands (swamps were right on the edge of the path) along the path you would come across animatronic examples of several species of dinosaur, and each came with a sign that told you all about this particular specimen. The dino movements were random and they were very lifelike. There were even ones that spit at you as you walked past. It was real enough to make some of the small children on the walk cry.

One look at this guy and you can see how some young ones get scared.

Those teeth, and it is hard to see but he is life like.

Some of the animatronics are a little too realistic. This is Jurassic era fast food.

After the dino walk, we hopped on the train to the back of the park, from the train we got to see some of the animals we were going to miss that day — up close and personal.

The train is an open train that goes from the front to the back of the park. So if you walk all the way to the back and you get exhausted you can hop on the train and get a ride back to the front and still see some cool animals.

It is never too hot and sticky to miss a selfie.

Mr. Zebra was just chilling out by the fence next to the train.

What a majestic beast. This is an African Elephant (you can tell by the ears they are shaped like Africa). I believe this is the one that was gifted to the Zoo by Michael Jackson.

At the back of the park, we walked by the Trout River looking for manatees. Down another path was the Asian exhibit home to tigers and plants and animals native to Asian lands. The humidity was crazy so we stopped and got a shaved ice.

This shaved ice was perfect and just what we needed to cool off.

While we cooled off, we checked out the most beautiful fountain and garden area where they host events after the zoo closes. How awesome would it be to get married at the zoo?

After the ice, we went to see an adorable 4D movie short and then hopped back on the train to the front of the zoo. We went close to closing time, so we didn’t have as much time to explore as we hoped but we still had a blast.

At the front of the zoo, we went to Sting Ray Bay. This is a huge pool where you have a chance to actually pet Sting Rays.

Who knew sting rays are like the puppies of the seas. They were loving all the attention and all the petting. Swimming from one eager hand to the next. I think we could have stayed all day there. A trip through the Aviary and the gift shop closed out our day.

We didn't even get to think about the playground, water play area or the carousel. Those are for the youngest visitors.

As we left we stopped by the gift shop, where we got a glass figure of a sting ray to start a new collection.

As we left we were already making plans for our next visit and what animals we wanted to see. Next visit we want to feed giraffes and birds and visit the alligator pit. If you haven’t been to the Zoo you should plan a visit. The Jacksonville Zoo is something that Jacksonville can be proud of.

I hope you will take the time to visit the zoo. You won't be disappointed.

**Some of the photos in this story were taken by Merry Schriver. She and I use the same camera.