What I did for my birthday

Can you believe it? I was so busy preparing for this weekend's activities, I completely forgot to write about my birthday. Yes, I did take some time to actually enjoy myself. My wife had taken the past three days off work to finalize listing arrangements, and since she happened to be around the house on Friday, I thought what the heck we may as well do something together. I had been planning to cross the border to pick up the last of my company-paid prescriptions, so I invited my wife to come along for the ride. And while state-side, I commented that it was too bad her season pass to the zoo had expired, because it was really a nice day. Then, I was surprised to hear the pass wouldn't expire until June 2nd! So, on the spur of the moment, we went to the zoo.

We weren't dressed appropriately. She had beach sandals, and I was wearing leather street shoes... not the kind of thing you like to walk around the park with. And we had no hats, sunscreen, or picnic food. Still, we figured we'd have a good time. My thought was that there would be very little crowd - it being a weekday, and not a holiday in either country. I should have realized that this close to the school year-end, there would be lots of field trips.

There were children everywhere, and each school had their own special t-shirts to make student identification easier. The only saving grace was that we didn't arrive at the park until nearly 1:00PM, so within the next hour or so, most of the kids had cleared out to head back to school.

The zoological society has been doing a marvelous job raising the profile of the zoo, and this year, a new exhibit, the Arctic Ring of Life opened. This exhibit contains both the Polar Bears and Sea Lions, each of which used to have separate, and non-neighboring pens; along with displays of an arctic fox and snowy owl. We had hoped the penguins would also be part of the exhibit, but their facilities are already quite impressive, and a big draw for children. I guess it needed to retain it's extra-large area. The really cool thing about the new exhibit is that it allows people to view the animals in their native habitat. Rather than having "trained" sea lions entertaining the crowd and swimming in pens only during shows, these creatures can now remain on their super-cooled artificial iceflows, and are free to enter the water whenever they choose. And rather than have the polar bears wander aimlessly on rock formations that seem more appropriate to mountain lions, they too have their iceflows and extensive pools.

And the public viewing area for the exhibit extends both over and under the areas where the animals are kept. So, you can enter a glass tunnel submerged within the swimming area of the polar bear. From this vantage point, you can watch the bear swim. At times, the bear will use the tunnel's roof as a perch - stopping there for a brief rest. When that happens, the humans below get an unrestricted look up the butt of the polar bear from a distance of about three feet. Many visitors were taking candid photos. Unfortunately, having decided to visit on the spur of the moment, we weren't carrying our camera. Other times, the bear will look into the tunnel, gazing at the park visitors. Still other times, the bear will use the tunnel as a pushing-off point, and we got to see the powerful legs and massive paws in motion as the bear swam above.

The sea lion portion of the underwater world is separated from the polar bear portion by a glass pane. Visitors in the tunnel can view the bears and the sea lions simultaneously. Both creatures can see eachother through the glass, but there is no way to actually get from one area to the next.

This exhibit alone would have been worth the price of admission, had we not gotten in free of charge. There was one exhibit that we did have to pay an additional fee to see. It was a simulator that allowed you to experience some of the day-to-day events in the lives of various animals, from the perspective of the animals themselves. The simulator caused you to move while a projected image showed the environment the animal would live in. The animals represented by the ride included a cougar, honey bee, frog, dolphin, and owl. The simulator had room for about 40 simultaneous visitors. My wife and I had the whole place to ourselves.

All in all, we spent about 2-1/2 hours at the park, just enough to see the exhibits without becoming sunburned or too fatigued. When we got back home, we went out for a birthday supper (the waitress that served us had her birthday today), then stopped by my parents' home for a short visit. That gave them an opportunity to express their own happy birthday wishes.

And today, I got a birthday phone call from my sister who lives out of town. It was her call that reminded me that I hadn't yet blogged about the occasion.