We All Need a Change of Pace

Everyone needs a change of pace sometimes. If you’re working, a day off to go somewhere to experience something different is fun and exciting. If you aren’t working and stay home most of the time, a day out to go somewhere to experience something different is also fun and exciting. If you’re doing both (working from home,) the same holds true. That‘s what must explain our trip to the zoo today with about 6,000 of our closest friends.

It’s a small zoo near Sanford, North Carolina. It has a fair variety of animals — tigers, monkeys, lemurs, a python that you wouldn’t want to meet outside its enclosure (man, those things get big!), a giraffe (only one, since their other one died recently, which makes everyone sad,) bison and water buffalo, a camel, and more peacocks than I ever want to see again. It’s not the seeing that’s the problem: they yell “Help! Help!” VERY loudly ever so often. There was also at least one rooster whose job was to crow every once in a while, which would set the peacocks off like sirens. And the peacocks roamed free, so one was likely to be close to you when the rooster alarm went off. I may be able to hear again within a week or so.

The zoo also had a number of farm animals — a huge pig, cows, goats, chickens — good for people who have never lived on a farm and don’t know what cows look like. I spent a lot of time on my grandfather’s dairy farm when I was growing up, so I am familiar with those animals. There were no petting areas, so children couldn’t interact with the farm animals, which is a shame but better for…