Jaunted

· Tomorrow the Binghamton Zoo will be holding Animal Olympics events. There will be "Olympic themed games, activities, and crafts throughout the zoo," which is admittedly vague, and there will also be free ice cream, which is deliciously specific. Gates open Saturday at 10am, or "in a few hours" if you're reading this in the UK where it's actually relevant to you.

· Then on Sunday the Edmonton Valley Zoo in Canada is holding its 2012 Edmonton Valley Zoo Summer Animal Olympics. The zoo has an impressive lineup of interesting themed events, and there's also a time when guests can "join the interpretive staff play some 'Northern Peoples Games.'" (Oh, Canadians! Also: seriously?) Guests can also participate in the zoo's annual fictitious "Race for Animal of the Year," which is more or less a fundraising cute-off. Pictures of the seal, lemur, red panda, and arctic wolf who are competing this year are here.

· And then of course there's the London Zoo, which has been preparing for the 2012 Games for quite a while. Back in March zookeepers built an Olympic diving board for the penguins, who have been practicing ever since. There's a video below. It looks like whole zoo has been made over for the duration of the summer, and just so you can be sure, here's a recent Flickr picture of the zebra enclosure. See?

[Photo: London Zoo]