A Day of Animal Firsts

(30 May 2008: Edited to add links to pictures)
We went to Zoo Atlanta today. Of course, it's not my first zoo, but it was the first one where I got to see giant pandas. I even saw a cub!

Other firsts:

• My first white peacock. He fanned his tail for me. But he was easy. He fanned for everyone else who walked by.
  
• My first bathing tiger. It was adorable until someone attracted his attention. Then he looked at me, prompting my first realization that tigers eat people. Not so cute after that.
  
• My first yawning naked mole rats (sorry, no pictures of yawning.) Put the tips of your thumb and forefinger together. Now spread them as far apart as you can. It's like that, but with really big teeth.
  
• My first sight of a Monitor Lizard walking upside down, hanging from the mesh roof of its enclosure. He made it all the way across and back before he fell back to earth.
  
• My first tortoise fight (video.) The winner flipped the loser onto his back. After a while, a zoo employee righted him again.
• My first mama gorilla. She carried one baby on her back and kept the other one in line by making him walk between her legs. Literally. Whenever he started to stray, she shoved him back between her legs again.
  
• My first baby warthog. She's only six weeks old.
  
• My first flamingo mating. 'Nuff said (and no pictures of this one, either.)
  

Aphorisms!

Humans have a lot of sayings that aren't true. For example, "Where there's smoke, there's fire." In our last mini-house, the smoke alarm went off twice--it was really loud, and I ran and hid both times!--but there was no fire. It was just the toaster, which apparently needed to be cleaned or something. I notice the humans have learned their lesson and hidden away the toaster in our current mini-house.

Here's another saying that isn't true: "Curiosity killed the cat." Obviously FALSE! I'm very curious about all sorts of things, and it hasn't killed me yet. I spend a lot of time sniffing at the front door of each mini-house, which is where all sorts of interesting sounds and smells enter. They're not all good, but they are interesting!

I guess cats can get used to anything.

By my count, we've been in at least a dozen mini-houses since this whole thing started. I can't say that I much care for the transfer from mini-house to car, but even the drive is not so bad. Jasper and I get to look out the window and smell interesting things. Then I take several naps.

I get awfully thirsty, though. I wish she wouldn't keep tapping that plastic bottle in our carrier and then rubbing wet fingers near my mouth. Doesn't she know that I'd like a drink? Touching my face with wet fingers when there isn't any water is kind of cruel. But at least we get plenty of water when we finally reach the next mini-house.

Positive reinforcement at the mini-house seems to be having its benefits as well. The humans have been letting us settle into the mini-houses for longer stretches now. They have also been conscientious about not letting any more unsupervised strange people into our presence.

I'm continuing positive reinforcement by coming out from under the bed whenever they are in the mini-house. I give the humans lots of attention and even lie on the bed with them until they fall asleep each night. If they keep up the good work, we might just make it through this trip without anyone getting hurt after all.

The Kids Call It "ATL"

Because I know you all care so much, here's our planning map:


View Larger Map

As usual, we're staying on the outskirts of the metro area--this time, in Norcross, Georgia, about 20 miles from downtown Atlanta. Cheaper lodging, more options for pet-friendly hotels, and we get used to driving everywhere, so a one-hour commute to an out-of-the-way national park site doesn't seem like a burden.

~CKL

Okay, New Plan

Over lunch today (in Laclede's Landing, after riding to the top of the Gateway Arch), D and I hammered out contingency plans for the next few weeks of our trip. This was our original itinerary:

• May 20-24: St. Louis, MO
• May 24-29: Atlanta, GA
• May 29-June 6: Orlando, FL (Shuttle launch on May 31)
• June 6-13: Asheville, NC (D's family reunion, all week)
• June 13-17: Kitty Hawk, NC

...and continuing on up the east coast to Washington, DC, and Niagara Falls. Orlando and Asheville were the fixed points in time, since NASA isn't going to reschedule the launch for our convenience, and D's family have already taken time off from work for their get-together. It actually worked out pretty well, since Asheville is a plausible one-day drive away from Orlando.

Unfortunately, we just found out this week that D's family may not be reuniting in Asheville after all. It's a long story, but the upshot is that one sibling--the one who has the timeshare in Asheville where everyone was going to stay (except us; we'll be in a pet-friendly, child-free hotel)--may not be able to travel out from Wyoming, and they won't make the go/no-go call until June 3rd. Another sibling has offered to host the gathering at his home in Pennsylvania, but that's a bit farther than one day's drive from Orlando. And after a couple of bad stopovers*, we've struck the one-night exception from our road rules. So every stop has to be at least four days.

Here's the new plan. We have these possible conditions:

1. D's family reunion happens as planned in Asheville.
2. D's family reunion happens in Pennsylvania instead, on the same dates.
3. D's family reunion happens in Pennsylvania on different dates.
4. D's family reunion doesn't happen at all.

And this is what we'll do in each case:

1. Stick to the plan. Nothing changes; everyone's happy.

2. Leave Orlando early. We want to spend at least one day each at the Universal and Disney World theme parks, but we can leave as early as June 4th. We'd then spend four or five days at a halfway point (possible Charlotte, NC), then spend six or five days, respectively, with D's family in Pennsylvania.

3 or 4. Skip it. We are only willing to bend so far to accommodate people who can't plan ahead, even if they're family. If this happens, though, we will stop and visit individual family members later, since our plans are pretty flexible otherwise.

All we need to do at this point is check with the hotel in Orlando about their change policies (in case we check out early), and get our one-day Disney park tickets. We already have 7-day tickets for the Universal parks, so we can go hang out there (or see other sights in the area) if we do stay all the way through June 6th.

I'm sure this is terribly exciting to all our blog readers. Since it'll be a couple of weeks before we can plan the rest of our trip, I'll start by posting a map of where we've been. Later tonight, maybe.

* The cats are usually restless during their first night in a new place, and if the cats don't sleep well, D doesn't sleep well, and everyone's unhappy. Also, it's tough on us humans to do more than one day of continuous driving. If I wanted to be a long-haul trucker...

~CKL