Lions and Tigers and Bears, Who Needs 'Em?

Picking up the vacation narrative on Tuesday morning, we had an early breakfast at the B&B, hung out with Gary the proprietor a while, then headed to the Cleveland Zoo. We were there at the opening, 10:00 a.m., and for the next four hours we walked, and walked, and said, "Holy crap, look at that!" and then walked some more. As with every cultural facility we saw in Cleveland, it was a first-rate operation and at least as cool as anything in D.C. How much was there to see? By the time we had visited every major area except the above-mentioned LT&Bs, we were worn out and left them for another day.

I have to mention two high points for me. First was the butterfly exhibit. As cool as the botanical garden's butterfly display was, the zoo's was an order of magnitude cooler. This small, Garden of Eden-like room was filled with butterflies, including the huge, gorgeous blue morphos, a non-descript brown when their wings are closed, but in flight an electric blue not seen since the hippie days. Despite being crowded, the setting, the Japanese music, these tiny floating miracles put me in a state of calm, and quiet awe. Nice work, Lord, very nice work indeed. Butterflies kind of make up for mosquitoes, almost.

As we left the butterfly building, right there was another personal favorite, the giraffes. Maybe it started back when I read Slaughterhouse Five, but I've always loved giraffes. Seeing them in person, the way they move in real-time slow motion, their weird grace and calm, the beautiful coloring, everything about them fascinates me. There were eight giraffes, including two young'uns, and there was one adult who did that eating-over-the fence-with-splayed-legs-and-bent-in-half posture that just makes me laugh. Intelligent design, all right, and with a sense of humor to boot.

To paraphrase "The Princess Bride," let me explain -- no, there is too much. Let me summarize. The lorikeets, rainbow colored opportunists, snatched little cups of nectar from shaking eight-year-olds and hopped on the hands of anyone who looked like they would buy them a drink. People watching? The best. Selected species: the swarm of T-shirted shrieking daycare rats, the acid-tongued mommy shrew, the Aeropostale-breasted teen whiner, the hollow-skulled tweeners, the black-clad pierced emo sulker, the soft-brained bottle-sucking stroller bunnies, and the sunburnt map-reading tourists (hey, that was us!)

The sun was getting to be too much and our legs were reminding us of our age, so we headed back to the gate. I couldn't leave without checking out the rainforest, though, a separate facility in a geodesic dome that contained fantastic animals in a beautiful setting. High point for me was when we walked into a darkened corridor of nocturnal animals, and what appeared to be a blank glass wall transformed, as my eyes adjusted to the dim light, into a habitat for fruit bats, flying right up to the window and roosting inches from us. Creepy, okay, maybe a little, but fascinating.

That's enough for now. I'll pick up the next post at lunch, back in Little Italy.