John Ball Zoo Lantern Festival

The lantern festival at the John Ball Zoo in Grand Rapids, MI was the main reason we came to this side of the state last weekend. If I am being honest, @mrsbozz had been bugging me for quite some time about wanting to see the lantern festival. I kept saying the obligatory "okay honey", but never really did anything about it. Mostly because our Springs are usually pretty full in the first place, but for some reason this year I decided to actually do something about it.

In addition to that, I figured I would kill two birds with one stone and make a whole weekend of it. I figured we could go to the zoo lights/lantern festival one day and then make the short drive over to Holland, MI for the tulip festival on a different day (more on that in another post!).

The John Ball Zoological Garden sits on the west side of Grand Rapids in a rather hilly neighborhood. As we pulled into the parking lot I noticed that our car hit the 60,000 mile mark on the odometer, so I knew I had to take a photo of it. Plus we were listening to a pretty amazing song at the time, so there is that too.

Anyway, the zoo houses more than 2000 animals with over 200 different species. Given the fact that we visited the zoo at 9:30 at night, most of the animals were asleep, but I was surprised by a couple of owls who were quite interested in all the commotion at the zoo.

We took so many photos that I am likely going to have to split this up into two posts. I haven't quite decided yet. If anything, you might get lucky if this turns out to be a post that is light on text and heavy on photos! Having never been to the festival before, I wasn't quite sure what to expect. We have some friends who have been, but I don't think a verbal description really gives you an idea of how amazing it is.

While there was definitely an Asian theme to the whole lantern festival, there was also a lot of other whimsical stuff happening. The festival takes you through a mile long path that winds up and down the bluffs and ravines of the zoo. They have a couple of raised walkways that change the elevation quite a bit more than I thought it would. It actually made it kind of cool because at certain points you were almost walking through tunnels of lights.

Although they had the path clearly marked, there is so much going on that it's kind of easy to lose your way at times. We basically just followed the crowd.

Speaking of the crowd, it was pretty packed when we showed up at 9:30 at night. They have different time slots that you can buy your tickets and arrive in, but they didn't really seem to be keeping too close track of it. Plus, you can take your time walking through, so if you wanted to stay in there for six hours they probably wouldn't be tracking you down and kicking you out.

I've touched on the fact that many people lack situational awareness these days, so that along with people focusing on taking photos of pretty much everything lead to a bit of a chaotic event. If you don't like crowds, this likely isn't an event for you.

It was a chilly evening as we strolled through the zoo. We had been talking to the lady behind the desk at the hotel before we left for the lantern festival and she said that they add new things every year, so it is always a bit different show each time you visit. Despite the chill, it was actually a really great evening. We were walking enough that we didn't really have time to be cold. In fact, by the time we got back to the car I was actually sweating a bit.

The ground level part of the zoo walk seemed to be a bit of a random assortment of animals and things like that. As you progressed along the path, things became a bit more separated into different themes. I'll get to that in a different post though... Be sure to check it out either tomorrow or next week!