Elizabeth's Birthday at Turtle Back Zoo (aka Why I Should Expletive Run Things.).

On Elizabeth's birthday, the kids and I decided to do something fun. We looked into several attractions and decided to go to Turtle Back Zoo. After reading a great blog about Wallabies HERE, Lizzy could not wait to go and see them. We got to the zoo around 1:00p.m. Upon arrival we found out that The Treetop Adventure Course had been reopened that week. We started our way around the zoo. After seeing a large portion, we decided to save the Wallabies, wolves and big cats for after lunch. The food was absolutely horrendous, my grilled sandwich was, board of health violation, cold.  f you plan on going there, bring your own food.

After lunch, we stopped by the groundhog exhibit and walked through the butterfly garden. On the way to the Wallabies,we came across the Tree Top Adventure. Lizzy's eyes lit up at the adventure course, way up in the trees. As we entered, Emily and I decided to just do the zip-line but Lizzy, could not get it out of her head to do the entire adult course. Here is where I get proud of Lizzy. At 11 she conquers every fear. There is nothing that she can't do and do well.

We all got our harnesses on and Lizzy headed for the course, while Emily and I headed for the zip line. The zip-line(singular) was short and didn't compare to the zip-line park we went to in Cancun. We were done in about five minutes, so decided to sit at the only, somewhat, shady spot, at a picnic table with an umbrella. Now somewhere in this story, I forgot to mention that on the day we went, it was 88 degrees. Why does that little factoid become important? Because after an hour and a half of Lizzy being on the tree top adventure and Emily and I waiting for her, we were all dieing of thirst. Well, the zoo portion of the park had close, so no refreshments from there. At Tree Top Adventure, there were no vending machines or refreshments. In fact, according to one pleasant and sympathetic employee, the nearest form of hydration was past the end on the parking lot.

After seeing a water machine, just ten feet behind a locked gate, I lost it. Parched and pissed off, with consciousness waning, I called the zoo customer service number and left a message. The message went something like this...

“Hello, I realize you are at home sitting on your fat expletive drinking a tall cold one but the people at your expletive Tree Top Adventure are expletive dieing of expletive thirst. I brought my daughter here for her 11^th birthday and we remarked on how well the animals were taken care of and how unbelievably nice your employees are. Unfortunately the expletive management is so expletive incompetent that they didn't expletive care about the expletive silly humans who pay for their expletive zoo and expletive salaries. I've been watching my daughter on the expletive course for over an expletive hour and am so expletive thirsty it is expletive ridiculous. My 11 year old will be completing the course in a little while and be expletive dehydrated. Not that you expletive realized it may get over 80 expletive degrees in the expletive summer after expletive being here for expletive 50 expletive years or even expletive care because you expletive close the expletive park and have no expletive form of expletive hydration. You know you could move the expletive soda machine ten feet and it would expletive be reachable from expletive outside of the expletive gate. I'm calling to offer my management consulting services, so you can expletive fire your expletive overpaid expletive management and make your expletive zoo a great place to bring an expletive family instead of having them expletive pay extra to be tortured in the expletive heat. You'd probably make a lot more expletive money if you just left the expletive gift shop open for the expletive hour or so.  It would have expletive more than paid for it's expletive self for an expletive month in just expletive drinks and the expletive, expletive I would have bought there today.  Also, I plan to call the expletive board of health about the expletive food in your expletive cafeteria. Everyone there was expletive complaining about how expletive cold the expletive hamburgers, expletive hot dogs and expletive sandwiches expletive were. My name is Reed XXXX and my phone number is xxx-xxx-xxxx.”

I walked back to the picnic area hoping I would feel better but my throat was now so dry, I could barely speak. Emily was on a chair looking at her phone. I plopped into the chair next to hers and twenty minutes later Lizzy came down the pathway to us flush and exhausted looking. “Daddy, I'm dieing! I need something to drink before I zip-line.”. As calmly as I could I said, “Sweety, the management of this park is too stupid to have refreshments out here. They should all be fired but thanks to the fact that we are in an Essex County facility and the corrupt politicians probably hired the incompetent jack asses to begin with, good luck.”. Lizzy saw the angst on my face and decided to make her way to the zip-line.

We slowly made it back to the car. I literally could not walk straight from sitting in the heat and not having any form of hydration. We grabbed all the water in the car and drank it. My stomach ached as I tore apart the back of the Escape looking for Gatorade, I had stashed for just such a circumstance. Lizzy and I each drank a large bottle while Emily sipped on hers. Stomach still aching but thoughts getting back to normal, we drove home.

I have not received a call back from customer service and would like to say, that we would never go back again. In reality, we'd never go to the Tree Top Adventure again. The zoo part was really nice though and due to our own bad planning, we did not get to see the Wallabies, wolves or big cats.

Butterfly shorts are the latest craze, with real butterflies.