A visit to Indianapolis
Our anniversary is today. Karin & I were married two years ago.
On Saturday, we took a trip to Indianapolis. We stopped at the Dutch Café near Peru, Indiana, and ate several plates of food. This affected all the walking that we did at the Indianapolis Zoo.
It was a mediocre zoo on the whole. Some of the buildings were overly grand. They called attention to themselves rather than to the animals. The animals were minimally described by their placards, and many weren’t described at all. (I wistfully recalled the much humbler Austin Zoo, which gave heaps of information about each species, and, often, about an individual’s life history.)
Still, the zoo had four redeeming features:
(1) The parking lot design. Not all the lanes were parallel or perpendicular to each other. They seemed to be staggered diagonally.
(2) The elephants and rhinos. One male rhino, in particular, caused the ladies to blush.
(3) The suckling warthogs, whom Karin recorded:
(4) The pettable dog sharks. This, easily, was the best thing about the zoo. The sharks would swim around in a shallow tank. We visitors would reach in and pet them lightly with two fingers as they passed by. If a shark failed to receive a petting, it would make a u-turn and swim by again. The sharks seemed almost mammalian in their desire for affection. And their skins were wonderfully smooth; petting a shark felt like petting a loving, living hot dog.
Lest you worry that petting was forced upon the sharks, let me reassure you that there was a part of the tank where they could rest undisturbed.
Here’s a video from the Dodo about petting a somewhat larger shark:
Unfortunately, there was no traditional, farm-like petting section in the zoo. I guess the zoo could afford elephants but not goats.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
Afterward, we drove around downtown Indianapolis and saw the state capitol building. Without especially going out of our way, we have now seen the capitol buildings of the following states:
Utah
Wisconsin
Texas
Indiana
On the way home, we stopped at Half Price Books in Carmel, the ritzy suburb. We were one week too early. Next weekend, for Memorial Day, a sale will be held.
On Saturday, we took a trip to Indianapolis. We stopped at the Dutch Café near Peru, Indiana, and ate several plates of food. This affected all the walking that we did at the Indianapolis Zoo.
It was a mediocre zoo on the whole. Some of the buildings were overly grand. They called attention to themselves rather than to the animals. The animals were minimally described by their placards, and many weren’t described at all. (I wistfully recalled the much humbler Austin Zoo, which gave heaps of information about each species, and, often, about an individual’s life history.)
Still, the zoo had four redeeming features:
(1) The parking lot design. Not all the lanes were parallel or perpendicular to each other. They seemed to be staggered diagonally.
(2) The elephants and rhinos. One male rhino, in particular, caused the ladies to blush.
(3) The suckling warthogs, whom Karin recorded:
(4) The pettable dog sharks. This, easily, was the best thing about the zoo. The sharks would swim around in a shallow tank. We visitors would reach in and pet them lightly with two fingers as they passed by. If a shark failed to receive a petting, it would make a u-turn and swim by again. The sharks seemed almost mammalian in their desire for affection. And their skins were wonderfully smooth; petting a shark felt like petting a loving, living hot dog.
Lest you worry that petting was forced upon the sharks, let me reassure you that there was a part of the tank where they could rest undisturbed.
Here’s a video from the Dodo about petting a somewhat larger shark:
Unfortunately, there was no traditional, farm-like petting section in the zoo. I guess the zoo could afford elephants but not goats.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
Afterward, we drove around downtown Indianapolis and saw the state capitol building. Without especially going out of our way, we have now seen the capitol buildings of the following states:
Utah
Wisconsin
Texas
Indiana
On the way home, we stopped at Half Price Books in Carmel, the ritzy suburb. We were one week too early. Next weekend, for Memorial Day, a sale will be held.