Columbus Trip
We took a weekend trip out to Columbus, Ohio for a wedding reception. One of Lyndon's best friends from high school got married so we road tripped it out to Ohio for the weekend. Oh what a trip it was. It was like all the forces of nature were against us getting there. We had so many problems getting a rental car. We finally got one but had to trek out to New Jersey to get it. We were pleased with the car until at 2 am when we got a flat tire. Stinky cheese! Both of us had never changed a flat tire ever. I am lucky Lyndon is a go getter and figured it out. We were back on the road in less than an hour.
Saturday we spent the day at the Columbus Zoo. We are zoo people. Cosette was in heaven. She loves animals. The Columbus Zoo is one of the best zoos in the country and home to the famous Jack Hannah. That shows you how much of a zoo nerd I am. The zoo was awesome. We should have done it in two days. If only time had allowed. We made the most of our day and saw and did as much as we could.
We got to pet a lot of animals at the zoo. Cosette and I spent some time at the sting ray touch tank. Cosette was not too into the sting rays. One surprised Cosette and splashed her.
You can see her little fingers dipping in the water. Her actions and movements are very dainty and ladylike.
She is brave. She touched this American alligator on the tail.
Daddy and daughter photo. I love photos like this.
She is still into playing with rocks or I guess in this case gravel.
We made it just in time for the animal encounter. Got to see some new animals as well as some favorites.
Cosette's favorite was the sand fox. She thought it was a dog. She got upset when they took it back. She is an animal lover.
We got to get up close to this cheetah. The animal encounter is the only part of the zoo where you get to see a cheetah.
Oh and the most exotic animal of all, the golden retriever. Apparently he was raised with cheetahs and is the cheetah's buddy. I guess he keeps the cheetah in check.
She is our dancing princess. She loves to dance anytime anywhere.
One of the coolest experience of the day was seeing the manatee. This was the first time for all three of us seeing one in person. Pretty neat creatures.
What good zoo does not have a crousel? We are obsessed with them right now. We cannot get enough of them.
I love her little pose she is doing in the picture on the left.
We tried to track down Jack Hannah while we were there. We were told that he would be in the Australian section of the zoo.
The kangaroo enclosure was set up in a very unique way. You can get up really close and personal with the animals if they are awake. You enter the enclosure through some doors and there is a roped pathway for the zoo visitors to stay on and the kangaroos can go (or in this case hop) where ever they want. That means that if they want to wonder onto the roped path with the zoo visitors they can! We went at the wrong time of day. They were all asleep. The one on the left apparently was hanging out in the middle of the path earlier that day. Wish we could have seen that.
Next we got to see some prehistoric creatures, the dinosaurs! Cosette is now very into dinosaurs. She talks about them a lot.
Ready to see some dinosaurs! Once on the boat ride Cosette was not excited about the dinosaurs anymore. There was one that was spitting water and was pretty ferocious that kind of scared here. Poor baby girl. She laid her head on my lap and told me that she was scared. We cuddled for the rest of the boat ride which I will not complain about. Cuddle time with a toddler is pretty limited. They like to be able to go where they please.
Cosette's absolute favorite part of the day was the pony ride she took. Horses are her new favorite animal. She was so excited to ride the pony. Lyndon took her on it and said she was touching the pony and saying "horse" the whole time. She was in heaven.
As our tradition at zoos we like to get pictures with the animal sculptures. The Columbia Zoo has a huge collection of animal sculptures and so we took a picture with everyone we found.
Gorilla. The Columbia Zoo is home to the first gorilla born in captivity. I think it was born in 1956 (?) and it is still living!
Cosette and the red river hog.
Baby Rhino. The sculpture was pretty hot so Cosette was not interested in sitting on it. Just patting it.
We missed out on the aquarium but got a couple of photos with the sting ray sculpture and...
hammerhead shark!
Hanging with the manatees.
This is Cosette's classic "cheese" picture. She says "cheese" and will look just about everywhere but the camera.
And lastly the king of the lizards, the komodo dragon.
We need to be better about taking pictures. We took all the pictures at the zoo and did not get one of Lyndon and his friend. What were we thinking? To sum up our whirl wind weekend in Columbus was great! We do not regret going even with all the car problems and traffic we suffered (it was pretty intense). We embraced all parts of this adventure.
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