Zoolights

Finally took time to visit the Zoolights as a family on New Year's Eve. Jake headed straight for the 'Dancing Trees' - so named because the lights 'dance' to a Christmas medley with a strong Manheim Steamroller base.

The lights vary from red to blue to green or all of them together with white as well. It is always a big draw for the Zoo.

But there were so many other nice lights:

This Red White & Blue trio

This 'candy-coated' tree

These canopied trees

This 'firecracker' tree

And this mesuite tree with the blue moon rising above it.

I like the trees being lit up so much more than the animal shaped outlines lit up.  There were some new ones of those, too, but for the first time in a number of years they seemed to have gone back to lighting up more trees.

Zoolights Time Again

The Zoo does their lights each year and make little changes here and there. I've been through numerous times and try to catch the new or the old in a new way...I'm sure I'll have more before Christmas.

Here's the old (below) in a new way (above)

The entry to the Zoo.

The entry is past a bridge and instead of floating light displays in the water they are putting up large red floodlights that give a cool glowing effect on the palms along the edge of the pond.

The old spider & web display. Always seems to be in a new place.

More trees with trunks & branches lit up! That's what I like to see!

Zoolights

A few cities have zoos that do Zoolights. The Phoenix Zoo is one of them (a private zoo - not run by the city of Phoenix). Up until now, the weekday evenings have been quiet with the kiddos in school. It will likely pick up in attendance until the New Year. I hate having to deal with the crowds and the idiots who believe they can park anywhere they want (one year we issued over 60 parking tickets in one day!). Seems they could do better by issuing tickets for specific nights and selling only so many to avoid the sometimes 45 minute lines getting in. That said, it is still kind of fun. The music system seems to have improved over the years, though I believe the lighting itself (the main draw, really) has lessened. Well, some improvements in lighting but fewer trees all lit up.

The entry bridge is an improvement, though I liked the floating displays no longer used.

This is fairly new - fake palms all lit up
Hey Mom! Look at me! Gotcha!