This past Saturday we took off and went to Des Moines and the Blank Park Zoo, a place I had not been to since I was a kid, and at the time simply remember there being a lot of pens with animals inside, so I really didn’t know what to expect — would it be like a fancy farm or like a real zoo?   Would they have anything more exciting than a chicken?

As it turned out, the zoo is a rather nice place these days, having nice paths and landscaping and easy ways to get around to see all the sights.   Unfortunately, the giraffes, which are apparently the stars of the show, were not on display due to some fence-fixing, so we didn’t partake in feeding or seeing them, but that exclusion did garner us a 20% discount, which was nice.

On the whole, the place was…OK.   None of the animals were spectacular, but they were better than your average Holstein.   The environment was very nice, the staff reasonably friendly (for what we interacted with them), and the weather was mint.   I think, all in all, it wasn’t a completely wasted day.

Photo evidence for those of you who read Playboy for the, “articles”:   (click to zoom in!)

Despite the million tons of things that there are to do every spring in Iowa, due to cleaning up from the long winter to make everything look beautiful for three months (just so it can get destroyed by yet another winter), sometimes you just have to stop and take a look around.  If you really feel like it, hauling a camera around is a good idea, too.    Enjoy — I sure did, no matter what the gawking drive-by-ers seemed to think as they rubbernecked at the geek with the camera.

Happy May Day, everyone!   And, happily enough, today marks the 18th month since my life and heart were gratefully pierced through by the indefatigable shard of happiness that is my son, Keston.

Naturally, to celebrate we enlisted the help of a talented and flexible Sears photographer to capture his countenance for perpetuity.   Although it took two sessions since aborting naptime the first time became a bit of a trial, I think we got some pretty good takes.    Now if only his Adidas contract would go through.   Gotta get on that.

Happy year-and-a-half, Bug-Bug.     I love you so much!

(click on each image to get a large, up-close-and-personal picture)