A Visit To the Roger Williams Park Zoo

Between the Saturday before Thanksgiving, we visited two zoos and an aquarium. I already shared with you the pictures from our Philadelphia Zoo trip.

I have been wanting to share some pictures with you of our other two trips that week. Today, I will share some pictures from the Roger Williams Park Zoo in Providence Rhode Island.

This year for Thanksgiving, we traveled to Rhode Island to visit my sister-in-law and her family. We had a lovely visit and enjoyed their company. The day after Thanksgiving, we went with them to visit the Roger Williams Zoo in Providence, RI, which is not far from their house. If you are ever in the Providence area, the Roger Williams Zoo is well worth a visit, even in the off-season.

The zoo has some heavy-hitter animals, including: elephants, giraffes, rhinoceros, camels, wallabies, cheetahs, tamarins, Komodo dragons, kangaroos, zebras, pronghorns, red pandas, a serval cat, poisonous snakes, a tropical animal room, wolves, a farm animal area, and a snow leopard.

It is the first zoo in New England to earn accreditation by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) in 1986 and has been consistently accredited for the past 39 years.

The Roger Williams Park Zoo, like many of the other zoos that we visit, also has a Holiday Lights Spectacular. We took advantage of the various holiday props, as we always do (my boys love posing in those sorts of things) and I was able to take some pictures that look suspiciously familar.

Check out these classic photos of the boys posing at with the Lehigh Valley Zoo holiday props from the Winter Lights Spectacular, November 2021.

Lehigh Valley Zoo, Schnecksville, Pennsylvania. November 2021.

When I originally saw the Santa Chair at the Roger Williams Zoo, I thought for sure that the Lehigh Valley Zoo had the same chair, but my memory deceived me. Still, you get the idea. Animals have to eat in the winter too and people like holiday lights shows. I do not know if my children like posing for pictures, I think they do, but they definitely like sitting on holiday props.

Seven year old Nugget really enjoyed the Farmyard section of the zoo. He enjoyed the tractor that visitors are allowed to sit on and pretend to drive. I cannot emphases this enough, the fact that visitors are allowed to sit on the tractor was a big bonus for him.

Some of the animals were not out during our visit because of the cold air.

This was not a problem for us because the air felt cold to us too and by the time we reached the exit gate, we ready to get into a warm car. 

As you can see in the pictures, everyone was bundled up except Nugget. He was wearing his coat for at least half of the visit. However, after we visited the tropically heated Faces of the Rainforest enclosure, Nugget decided not to put his jacket back on and walked around like that for a while (maybe till we left the zoo, I cannot remember, it not a short time though). Maybe he does feel the cold. Maybe he likes the cold. One does not know.

A good time was had by all!

On a personal note, it was two years ago today that my family and I were at the Philadelphia Zoo and I started getting text messages from my sister Liz regarding not being able to get a hold of our father on the phone. Later that evening, we learned that he had passed away.

For me, it took a while to be able to get comfortable again with visiting the Philadelphia Zoo because I started to feel like something was very wrong while I talked to sister Liz on the phone while we were leaving the zoo. I still think about that December day, everytime I visit the zoo, especially when I am there in late fall.

Additionally, I am not always sure if I will continue to make these kinds of tourism, picture-type posts. My sons might grow out of posing for pictures when we visit zoos and parks. They might not want their images posted online in this way.

However, I know that my father always told me how much he liked my blog. He liked seeing the pictures of me and my family and he liked reading my posts. So today, I will post this post for him, in his honor. I never wrote him a eulogy-post like the one that I wrote for my mother but maybe sometimes the reason for my continueing to write this blog is because he liked it and told me so. Maybe I continue because he published five humor stories, written in the style of Patrick Mcmanus, in the Pennsylvania Game News in the nearly 1990’s.

May this blog last.

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