picnic time

David and I decided to stop by the grocery store to pick up a picnic lunch for the zoo and park today.  We intended to take it into the zoo, but we could see that they were searching bags and pulling out water bottles at the entrance, so we ate earlier than planned.  We sat along on a bench near the zoo entrance and ate our goodies.  Either the location where we chose to sit was odd, or picnicing was odd, because we got a TON of looks as we ate our lunch.  Not good or bad looks, just stares.

Fearing that we would not be able to take any of our leftovers inside, we gifted them to this old lady on the street near us.  She was very grateful and gave us the thumbs up in appreciation.

Ironically, they did not search our bag at all.  They asked if we had water (which we did), but David just shrugged and said "Ingles"?  The guy let us through with a smile and a wave.  Once we were in, we saw lots of people picnicing, so we probably could have done the same.  I still don't know why water bottles were not allowed.  My only speculation is that perhaps all drinks were not allowed because of a contract with Coca Cola which was a prominent sponsor of the zoo.