Tilden Park

In Berkeley there is the wonderful place called Tilden Regional Park. It is a huge outdoor area full of fun things to do. They have a steam train, a giant, outdoor merry-go-round, pony rides, and little farm. Now, when we went, everything was closed except for Little Farm, which was a little disappointing because Lily was so very excited to ride of the "choo, choo", as she was calling it all day. But once we made it to Little Farm, she forgot all about the train. At least until we left the farm. Then she again was asking about the "choo, choo." I felt awful. Next time I will have to be certain it is open.

Lily's favorite animals were the cows. She got particularly excited when she heard them "moooo". And, since her parents were wholly unprepared for the excursion and didn't bring anything to feed the animals, she quickly discovered that she could con other visitors out of their lettuce and celery to feed to the animals. And she was very good at it. Some of them even gave her their entire hoard. My little con artist. It's a good thing she's so cute so she can get other people to make up for her parents' lameness.

She loved the sheep too, and again conned some unsuspecting person out of a stalk of celery to feed them.

She was hilarious with the goats. I don't think she knew what goats were before our outing, not even from books. She bent way down to look between the slats of the fence. And when she couldn't see well enough that way, she lay prone on the ground to get a better look. With animal poop and all. Yummy.

She got a kick out of the chicken that had flown out of its pen. She terrorized it until I'm sure it will think twice before making another escape.

But she soon made her way back to the cows, completely fearless.

But when we tried to coax her into petting one, she shied away. They are rather big to a two-foot tall kid, so I can't blame her.

But she did manage to con one more person into giving her their food to feed the cows again. And she did it all by herself.

And that concludes our trip to Tilden Park. Definitely worth a repeat visit.