I am so tired right now and my legs are aching. We ended up walking a total of 5.2 miles today (which equals 17,398 steps and 761.2 calories burned according to my pedometer).
We left bright and early and arrived at Milwaukee County Zoo five minutes before it opened. While we were waiting in line, a woman offered us a free parking pass, which we happily accepted. I told Joe it was karma … last year when we went to Brookfield Zoo, we had an extra free parking pass and gave it to a family. So what goes around does in fact come around.
The weather was fantastic … cool enough to wear jeans, which kept us from sweating and feeling uncomfortable like we did in Cincinnati. You can tell that Milwaukee’s zoo is old, but I liked it a lot. I was really happy to get some good shots of two of my favorite animals – tigers and emperor penguins.
I was struggling to get sharp photos inside dimly lit areas (mostly indoor exhibits) until I remembered I can change the speed of my film, so to speak. Can I just say, duh? It took me awhile to figure out how to do it on my camera because I have never changed the ISO from the default setting of auto. I really feel like an amateur admitting that for the last year I’ve been missing out on a very important feature of my camera, but oh well, you live and learn. I’m just excited to learn what a difference manually setting the ISO to 400 makes! It greatly increases the shutter speed in low-light situations without making the photo come out too dark. There is, of course, increased noise in the photo, but it’s really not bad at all. You’ll see what I mean when you check out the photos I took today (most notably the tiger … I really felt sorry for him in particular because his cage was way too small. I did notice, however, that they are renovating the big cats building next year so that made me happy).
We checked out the special Butterfly Exhibit but it was disappointing. Mostly because it was too small and too crowded, not to mention humid (it was inside a building). The lighting was awful (artificial) and I didn’t get any good photos at all. I was really getting aggravated with the people too because they kept touching the butterflies and trying to get them to crawl on their hands. I almost said something to one of the teenages, but bit my tongue. I figured it wasn’t my place since the zoo employees didn’t seem to care. The only cool thing was how “friendly” the butterflies were. One landed on my head, and Joe had two different ones land on his head and his back. In all, I thought the exhibit was a waste of money, though.
Right before we left the zoo, I was photographing the carousel when a man approached me about my camera (a Nikon 5700). He wanted to know what I thought of it since he had an older Nikon digital (I believe it was either a 990 or 995 since it was the swivel model) and was looking to upgrade. I told him I thought it was great. Joe pointed out later that he thought the guy was looking for a more in-depth review of the camera, but I guess I didn’t pick up on that. I tend to get shy around strangers, plus I know I can talk too much once I get going, so that’s why I didn’t say much. So if he happens to come across this site, I’m sorry!
After the zoo, we went to Schlitz Audubon Nature Center because I read they have trails on the beach. I thought it would be cool to get some shots of Lake Michigan in a different setting, which it was (photos are here). Joe thought it would be nice to take a different trail back to the parking lot, but we actually ended up leaving the nature center (without realizing it right away) and temporarily got lost until he stopped two bikers and asked for directions. By the time we got back to the car, I was so exhausted! Note to self – always go back the way you came.
We were hungry and tired after five miles of walking, so we started to head back home. Halfway there, we stopped for dinner at The Brat Stop. The food was great, as was the atmosphere. It was a very nice day. And since Milwaukee is only an hour and a half drive from us, I think we’ll be going back again soon. There is still much more to see!
The photos are awesome! I especially love the close-up of the tigers… the details are amazing! I’m glad you had a great day!
The tiger is amazing. I always feel bad for all the animals when I visit a zoo. I have to tell myself over and over again that maybe they were rescues and cannot survive in the wild anymore, because if I think they are perfectly healthy and were wild when they were caged, I’d cry the whole way through.
The two photos of the birds were fantastic, too. And the diamondback snake or whatever it was! Wooo hoooo!
My favorite is the penguin. “One small flight for penguins, one giant flight for flightless bird-kind”