Flamingos and Orangutans and Baribusas (?)! Oh my!

Today, I awoke at about 5:00 a.m. to the sound of the TV and the smell of bacon. Alex had gotten up early and made breakfast. I had Pop-Tarts because I didn’t see his note until after I’d put them in the toaster, but that’s okay.

After last night’s tornadoes (thanks for checking on us, Jennifer, Jan, and Kristy), the day dawned cool but sunny. Mark and I had planned to go to Julia Street and the arts district, but Dan and Alex planned to go to the zoo, and James and Tom agreed to join them. We decided to put off the arts district until tomorrow, so we all piled onto a street car and rode down to the Audubon Park and Zoo. The perimeter walk around the (quite large) park is shaded by ancient live oaks covered in ferns. It was really the most pleasant walk we’ve had here so far.

Some of you know that I’m not a big fan of zoos. Putting animals in artificial habitats that are much smaller those in which their species typically reside seems inhumane to me. However, my impression was mostly formed by a visit to the Columbus zoo twenty-some-odd years ago. I recently attended a wedding there and was surprised to see that for many animals, things had improved, so I was willing to give the Audubon Zoo a shot. I still can’t quite unsee the pathos in the eyes of the elephants in particular, but I also recognize that zoos do important work helping species survive the destruction we bring down on them.

Ok stop preaching….

On our visit today, I did get to see some pretty/funny/interesting animals that seemed quite at home. That’s what the rest of this post is about, other than to say we have reservations tonight for dinner at Estrella—a place we tried unsuccessfully to get into two nights ago. Now, on with the show.