Airport and zoo adventures

Well, Heidi's in Atlanta and after dropping her off at the airport this morning, Anna and I spent a good chunk of the day at Blank Park Zoo in Des Moines. It's a pretty little zoo, and I've blogged about it before, but it was what we did today so it's getting blogged about again. For being a little zoo, it has some pretty cool animals. While it doesn't have an elephant (for shame!), it does have some cool giraffes (and they get pretty close to you, too), a lion and two lionesses, a Siberian tiger (there's only 300+ left in the wild!) and, much to Anna's delight, a petting zoo absolutely brimming with goats for her to pet and feed. I think Anna could have spent the entire day with the goats, and every time I tried to redirect her and have us go see something different, she'd say to me "But Daddy, I love them!"

Consequently, we spent a lot of time in the petting zoo dealing with goats of all colors and sizes.

She also rode a camel (not a Bactrian camel, as she told me -- that factoid courtesy of Zoboomafoo, I'm certain.)

Generally positive reviews. "Bumpy but fun..." -- Anna

It was pretty hot today, so we came back from the zoo mid-afternoon. We sat around being lazy in general. I read some of The Revenge of Gaia, which made for some interesting reading material after having just been to the zoo where seemingly every animal was endangered. I agree that we've pretty much wrecked this planet for every species of living thing save humans (and we're working on that now) but so far, the book seems like an environmental version of the book The Long Emergency. I mean, I agree that global warming does appear to be happening and we need to do something about it, but the book is making me feel like shit for having brought another life into the world. Pretty much the same way The Long Emergency made me feel.

We rounded out the night playing Barbie Beauty Boutique on her computer (which she refers to as "the Barbrie makeover game) while we listened to the Olivia Newton-John DVD of her early videos in the background. They're some of the cheesiest things in the universe, and even the excuse of "it was the 80s" doesn't really give them a pass. I mean, I don't think there was an 80's cliche that ONJ didn't fall for, hook, line and sinker. Bear witness to these:



But I do love this one -- because she is, well, totally hot.



But what's up with that construction worker touching his buddy as Olivia runs by in her leather pantsuit? Am I supposed to believe that actually happens?

And I got Anna to bed around 9pm (even though she insisted on wearing her footie pajamas in July.) All in all, a good day.