Beast of Burden

My kids were invited to a birthday party yesterday. It was for the son of one of my wife's friends from work, but my wife worked the night before and the night of, so the responsibility of taking the kids fell to me. It was at the zoo which is a great idea for a little boy's party, except...

You may have heard it's Halloween this weekend. Our local zoo is really awesome, it's one of the best in the country I think. Better even than the famed San Diego zoo. Every Halloween they put on a Boo at the Zoo event for the kids, and I would imagine that most zoos in the country do something similar. But given the popularity of this particular zoo, it's a major, major event. And that translates into a nightmare of traffic and parking. The zoo is set back from the main road about 2 miles, and all along the drive leading up to the main zoo parking lot are open grassy fields and park areas with playgrounds and whatnot, each with its own parking lot. To give you an idea of how much traffic there was, it took us 40 minutes to travel from the main road to the current active parking area. And on top of that, they were parking people on the grassy fields, because all of the lots were full already. This left us over a mile from the entrance of the zoo.

Walking in was ok, I stashed the youngest in his umbrella stroller and everyone was so excited it was an easy walk. Lucky for us we already had our tickets, because the line to buy tickets had to have been several hundred people deep--at each ticket booth. Once we got in, it was a nightmare tangle of people everywhere. Add to the mix the free candy the zoo was handing out for the event, and the kids were so hopped up on sugar that the entire event was destined to reach critical mass.

We arrived a little before the party started, and when all the kids from the party headed over to the candy scoring portion of the event, we chose to go see animals instead. We saw parrots, and lions, and tigers, and bears, and oh my...

After the party of course the return trip to car was a different story. Little kid feet were not happy and excited anymore, and over a mile is a long way for little legs. I ended up with my 4 year old on my shoulders. The walk in had been effortless for me thanks to my new found fitness, but the added weight of my daughter on my shoulders really kind of tired me out by the time we made it back to the Jeep. And then it hit me, at my new lowest weight of 245 lbs, I am 39 lbs down from my heaviest. My daughter weighs a few more pounds than that, but just. With her on my shoulders, I was very near the weight I used to be, and my knees were hurting me, and my hips were aching. I was winded, and sweaty.

It was a very literal demonstration of exactly how far I've come, even without realizing exactly all the benefits I've reaped to date. I have 33 lbs to go to hit my goal weight. I'm not sure if I'll make it that low or not because it seems my weight loss has started to slow a bit. We'll see.