Today was the return to reality.  We got up early, had breakfast, packed the van, and headed out.

It was opposite day on the road for us when compared to the drive up on Thursday.  Captain Carsick did not rear his ugly head again, traffic was for the most part relatively light, and there were no traffic backups.  The only hang-up on the road was that Boo tried to get out of his carseat several times, which caused us to pull over and re-strap him in.

We got from Columbus to the Kentucky suburbs of Cincinnati in really good time, but lost all of that time when I made the mistake of trying to get a quick lunch at a Bob Evan’s on Sunday at noon.  I know, I’m not very bright sometimes.  It took 45 minutes to get seated, 15 minutes to be waited on, 45 minutes to get our order, and another 30 minutes to get a check and get out of there.  If I didn’t think that Boo would have melted in the parking lot if I’d tried to get him back in his carseat so soon after getting him out, we would have left after 15 minutes of waiting for a table.  It took 45 minutes to get our meals because they lost the order, but they tried to make up for it by giving us a couple of appetizers gratis while they put together our meals.  I stress the ‘tried’, because it’ll be a cold day in Riyadh before I go cross the threshold of a Bob Evan’s again.

On the way back, we took the scenic route down towards Lexington instead of taking the straight route to Louisville.  That way we avoided all of the construction on I-71, as well as the possibility of being backed up behind race day traffic at the track in Sparta.  The Bluegrass  is prettier than the route along the Ohio River anyway.

I tracked fuel economy on the way back, and the van got a little less than 22 miles per gallon driving 70 to 75 miles an hour on the interstate.  Not bad for 5 year old minivan loaded to the gills with people and luggage.

Pros for the weekend:

• Columbus Zoo is awesome!  If you are into zoo’s, it’s definitely worth the time and money to get there.
• Our hotel, the Chase Suites in Dublin, was wonderful. More on that later.
• I am officially off of my soft, bland, sweet post-surgery diet, so I was able to partake in meals that contained actual food!

Cons for the weekend:

• It was hot enough to boil a monkey’s bum.  We’ve already decided that when we go back, we’ll make it part of a spring break trip so we can spend more than 3 or 4 hours at a time walking around the zoo.
• The highway departments in Ohio and Kentucky are on official notice that they can bite me.   At least half the highway between Louisville and Columbus was a construction zone, and a poorly managed one at that.  My guess is that this is the states spending the last of the money for “Shovel Ready” projects before Uncle Sugar shuts off the taps.

So there you have it.  The family got to spend 96 hours together, no-one got strangled, and everyone reports that they had a good time.

A couple weeks ago, Jake over at Curses Foiled Again! added me to his blogroll, and I’ve been trying ever since to add him to mine. For some reason Blogger is choking on it, even though I can see his RSS feed in my reader.

Jake’s a good writer, and he was nice enough to blogroll me, so I’m going to keep trying to reciprocate.

In the meantime, go on over and give him a read.  I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.

We went back to the zoo this morning and stayed for a few hours before fatigue and heat drove us back to the parking lot.  We cut the older kids loose with admonitions to mind their manners on pain of death, and Irish Woman and I took Boo to see the Islands, Africa, and Australia exhibits.  Three days of constant motion were definitely weighing on the little guy, and by the time we called it a day, he was pretty much reduced to sitting in the wagon and crying.  For those of you without kids, that is the international signal for “Daddy, I’m done.  Take me home so that I may partake of lunch and an afternoon nap.”.  Irish Woman and I were about done too, and the Saturday morning crowds were getting outrageous, so it wasn’t a hard sell to pack up and go home.

The highlight of the morning was the gorilla exhibit, complete with a baby gorilla.  I know, I know, cute baby animals is a worn-out meme, but that little guy sure was cute.  Irish Woman tried to get a picture of him, but mama gorilla wasn’t cooperating.

This afternoon, I’m kicking the older kids out to the pool, relaxing, and rehydrating.  I may or not take them to the local science museum this afternoon, but that air conditioned couch is looking mighty inviting.

Here are the best of the pictures from today.

I’m the king of the world!

This is the greatest jungle gym I’ve ever seen.  It’s 4 freaking stories tall!

If one more kid knocks on that glass, I’m going to go off like a kodiak marmoset!

Here are the best of the pictures that Irish Woman took today:

Uncle Ole.  He’ll be out in a few years with good behavior

Take. The. Bloody. Picture. Mom.

Swamp Donkey

I’m gonna clean up this one horse town

Go away kid, you bother me.

What the heck is that?

Little Bear and Boo

What you can’t see is that the toddler is propelling me away from the animatronic dinosaur at a high rate of speed

After getting a much needed night’s rest, we got up bright and bloody early this morning to get to the zoo before the gods of heat and humidity started showing their displeasure with the American Mid-west.   We made it four hours before we pretty much wilted and headed back to the hotel for a dip in the pool.

The Columbus Zoo is great.  A lot of thought was obviously put into making sure that there was adequate shade in most parts of the zoo.  Most of the areas we walked through had tall trees growing up on both sides of the sidewalk, which was very nice on a hot day like today.  We started out wandering through the North America exhibit, which included animals I haven’t seen in a zoo since I was a kid.  The buffalo exhibit includes pronghorn antelope, which I have never seen in a zoo before.  I’m surprised they’ve been able to keep the speedgoats from jumping the fence and running amok in the suburbs.  The new Arctic exhibit is quite large, but is well laid out.  The highlight, of course, was the polar bear exhibit, which includes a curved underwater window, which allows visitors to stand underneath the water and look at the polar bear as it swims.  On a side note, I’m not sure if the trout in that pool were for decoration, nutrition, or entertainment for the bear.  Next to the polar bear exhibit were the Alaskan brown bears.  Those big bruins were taking a nap when we got there, but their size alone was enough to keep Boo’s attention for several minutes.  The zoo has decorated the grounds around this exhibit with statues made out of the mangled metal implements and hardware that the bears have destroyed.

After stopping to partake in a cold, bubbly beverage and get Boo to drink enough water and juice to get his pink cheeks to be rosy and not hot to the touch, I noticed something else about this zoo that I like.  It has a license to sell beer.  While I did not partake myself, I can definitely imagine the need to have a cold beer on a hot day when you’re stressed out from trying to keep your kid from climbing the fence into the tiger exhibit.

Our next stop was the aquarium and manatee exhibit.  The aquarium includes a coral reef exhibit with some beautiful tropical fish, a hands-on exhibit with crabs, starfish, and such for the children to touch, and a 20 to 25 meter long aquarium with many varieties of fish, including small sharks.  That alone took almost half an hour to get through as we showed Boo all of the different fish.

The manatee exhibit is top notch.  The zoo apparently acts as a rescue facility for injured or sick wild manatees, and they currently have four.  These are housed in a large tank that somewhat approximates a mangrove swamp, complete with fish, ducks, and rays.  Boo was tickled to watch a manatee eat the lettuce floating on the surface of the water.  Cries of “He’s eating his salad!” rang out quite often.

When we left the relative cool of the manatee exhibit, the outside temperature was in the 90’s and it was very muggy. We decided to grab some lunch and go back to the hotel for a swim.   We got our lunch, relaxed for a while in the air conditioning, and then headed to the pool.  I haven’t been swimming in a long time, and it felt wonderful.

After everyone got dressed again, we had to figure out what we were going to do for the rest of the afternoon.  A quick search found a movie theater across the way from our hotel, so we thought we’d go to the movies.  Irish Woman and I decided to take Boo to see Winnie the Pooh, but the older kids decided they’d rather stay at the hotel and watch a movie there.  The new Winnie the Pooh movie is pretty good.  It’s definitely aimed at kids 5 and under, but it’s survivable for parents.

This evening, we’ve been relaxing at the hotel.  We got groceries and made a pot of spaghetti, and we’ve thrown a movie in the DVD player.  Tomorrow we’re going to back to the Zoo in the morning to see the two sections we didn’t get to today, and we’re considering going into Columbus to go to the local science museum in the afternoon to revel in its air conditioned spaces.

So today went much smoother than yesterday, and I’m very grateful for that.  I’m pretty sure that Irish Woman was ready to drug me and leave me semi-conscious in a corn field last night.

The scene: The interior of a minivan
The time: Lunchtime
Background: The family has just walked through half of the Columbus Zoo, and has decided to go back to the hotel for a while to relax and cool off.

DaddyBear – How about we go through the drive-through and get something for lunch?
Irish Woman – Sure
……
Teenager at Burger Joint Inc. Franchise # 1234191923B – Hello, welcome to Burger Joint! How may I help you!
DaddyBear – Yes, I’ll have a #2 combo with a Diet Coke, please. What would you like, Irish Woman?
Irish Woman – I’ll have a #5, with no mayonaise or ketchup.
DaddyBear – OK, we’ll have a #5 combo with nothing on it. What would would like to drink, dear?
Irish Woman – I didn’t say I wanted a combo, I just want the sandwich. And I don’t want it with nothing on it, I just don’t want ketchup or mayonnaise.
DaddyBear – Twitch, Twitch. I’m sorry, scratch that #5 combo. We’ll just have the sandwich that comes with it without any condiments, please.

As heaven is my witness what I heard the second time was

I want a bacon cheeseburger made with beef ground this morning from a cow that was raised eating only the sweetest clover and alfalfa. It must have been a black and white cow, and have listened to Swedish yodelers piped in at least twice daily.  I want the cheese to have been made from the milk of a Hungarian jungle yak, and have been aged at least 4 months but no more than 6. And the bacon cannot be smoked with applewood, it must be smoked using virgin Brazilian cherry logged by indigenous loggers. The pigs must have been fed on corn harvested in southern Mongolia, and should have been bred after the sow listened to Barry White. Also, I want organic tomatoes, onions, and lettuce gently placed on my sandwich. And I want all of between two pieces of fresh, ungarnished Parisian baguette, baked by monks who were sworn to silence during the Nixon administration.

I swear, Irish Woman is a living saint.  She puts up with me and my hellions, but she is the pickiest eater I’ve ever seen when it comes to any kind of sandwich.  It’s a good thing I love her so much.  The bad thing is, the kids are starting to order their food in the exact same way.