Memorial weekend zoo trip

To celebrate Memorial weekend in style, we decided to take a trip to the zoo in Bloomington on Sat. I can't remember the last time we left town (Christmas? Maybe i should check the blog archives?). Btown is only 45 minutes away, so this was a nice way to build up to some upcoming adventures.

Below, Jill and Clara pose outside the sun bear's cage. The sun bear is my favorite animal at the zoo, a happy looking guy in continual search of fun. We had just waited out a monster thunderstorm inside the rain forest room.

We invited the list of friends on our 707 cafe list, and Matt and Jaime and kids answered the call. This worked out great as Jaime led us to a great Italian family restaurant for lunch. Oddly U-C has nothing like this -- Fazzoli's doesn't cut it, and the other Italian places are fancy-style.
On the way to Pontiac for a talk about water treatment in the oil industry, coworker Dave and I discussed big vs. small zoos. He argues that only large cities have economies of scale to have zoos. I argue that there must be a way to have a successful small zoo. Granted, many animals cannot be considered (e.g., elephants), and fewer animals can be in the zoo at any time. But why not rotate different animals in and out every 3-6 months. Then people might be interested in coming more often. Wouldn't this work? By the way, he suggested that we go to Indy's zoo, but not this weekend because they opened a huge new exhibit and were expecting large crowds. Again, this seems to argue for my opinion, no?

Also on that drive, we passed by a wind farm. Neither of us had been up close to one before, so I drove our survey's hybrid (Fusion) (ISGS is GREEN!) onto a service road and we got out. First, these windmills are huge! From a mile or so away the look big, but up close, wow! Second, on this average-wind day, the noise was a sort of background-noise-level whoosh-whoosh. It was noticeable, but not nearly as loud as most home appliances or automobiles on a highway.

Speaking of the 707 cafe, Jill switched to morning hours this week. Clara is taking a single nap in the afternoon more often now. More friends with many more kids showed up for the fun and donut holes.