Austin Zoo and Animal Sanctuary blog 5 (Jana Stuhr)

This week has just flown by! I had such a wonderful time this week. I got to know my entire fellow group Alternative Breakers really well. I felt like my group bonded fast and strengthened that bond over hours of playing hearts at night. We would play into the wee hours of the night then roll out of bed in the morning, pile into the mother ship a.k.a. the van, and head off to our day at the zoo. I am very glad that I got involved with Alternatives Breaks last summer because the service work allows me to expand on my experiences and meet people I wouldn’t ordinarily have met otherwise, and to gain new friends. On the last day at the zoo we cleaned and organized the enrichment and storage room/kitchen area in the Ed building. Then we were given a two hour break because the staff had a meeting, and we used this time to take a tour of the capitol building. I was really impressed by how large and elegant the capitol was. We toured both the House of Representatives room and the senate room. There is also an area where you can see to the top of the capitol from the bottom floor and one each floor going up are pictures of all the past governors of Texas. I learned that the first female governor of Texas was in 1923 and she served until 1925, and then was governor again for two years in the 1930s. This woman’s name was Miriam Ferguson. We finished our tour by going to the gift shop and making a few purchases. We all went back to the zoo where we split up like the day before and shadowed the zookeepers again. Mabel and I shadowed Randy who was taking care of the monkeys and the bobcats. Then we went back to the kitchen did a chain gang style job of dishwashing. Mabel scrubbed, I rinsed, Jake dried, and Katie put away. This was how we finished out our last day volunteering at the zoo. We made our way to the gift shop were Patti, the owner of the zoo, graciously allowed up to take a free Austin Zoo t-shirt. I chose a lime green one. Then most of us bought a few trinkets to take home as memories. I bought a stuffed leopard to take home to my niece because she loves, loves cats. Then we all posed for pictures with some of the staff. We were all leaving and said our goodbyes to everyone at the zoo, then said our goodbye to Erica, because she was driving back to Dallas. To round out our last day the rest of us went to Chuy’s, a Mexican restaurant, and talked with Julia and Jordan before they had to leave. I ate way too much queso and when my burrito came I was only able to eat four bites because I was so stuffed. Then Kait was super awesome and picked up the bill for everyone’s dinner. Can you say best site leader ever? We are spending the rest of the night playing cards, and will leave early tomorrow to go home. I had an amazing time and will always remember this trip and the people I shared it with.