My good friend Mary’s kids are almost 7, and they are, like, needy miniature adults that are fun to be around. We saw them briefly a few weeks ago. Mary mentioned that Drew, who probably could still tell you the score of the Lady Rockets game he went to over a year ago, had questions about baseball stats. I volunteered Brian to put his sports brain to good use, and a plan was hatched for us to all go to a Reds game.
I was off yesterday, so I further schemed so that we would drive to Mary’s house in Fairfield, send the babysitter away, and take the kids to the Cincinnati Zoo. We were supposed to be down there at 1PM, but I missed the exit, even though I lived at Mary’s house for a month once. ZOO DELAY! We got the kids’ booster seats in the car and headed for the Zoo. We told them on the way that they could pick where we had dinner. There was some whispering, and they told us they agreed on Frisch’s. Cheap dates.
We got to the Zoo, and I immediately let Olivia try to climb on a statue that was very hot in the sun. Then she tricked me and told me that Brian and Drew were already on the other side of the bridge after they took the stairs and we took the escalator. D’oh.
Cincinnati Zoo is our least favorite Ohio zoo…it’s really hard to know where you’ve been and where you need to go and how to get where you want to go. It’s not SO bad as non-meandering adults, but add 2 proto-second graders and shit gets real.
We saw the elephants (and learned about elephant teeth and poop) and moved on to the giraffes. There was a super cute fuzzy baby giraffe…he’s in the background of this picture:
We saw the flamingos, and this crazy flamingo was standing super close to us honking (or whatever you would call their noise) and looking from side to side:
We snaked around to some more exhibits, rejected the kids’ request to split up, and stopped so the kids could have snacks (thanks, babysitter) near the cheetah run demonstration area. We watched everyone do what we did – walk all the way back there, look all around for cheetahs and wonder where the cheetahs are when they’re not doing their running shows. Here’s a bad picture I took of the kids by the cheetah statues:
There’s a cool Bat-eared Fox exhibit that has a clear bubble/dome that kids can go to to look at the fox from inside the exhibit. The kids were in there being excited about the bubble and out again before they noticed the animal in the exhibit and had to go back in:
Of all the cool things to see at Cincinnati Zoo, they wanted to go in the children’s zoo and see nasty old goats and/or play on the playground:
The Zoo employee that was manning the gates to go in and out of the goat area was saying, “Have a goatally awesome day!” which I super-enjoyed.
We suddenly realized we were dilly-dallying, and we needed to get moving so we could go to Frisch’s (!). I wanted to see the rhinos and the manatees. When we made our way to see those two things, the rhino was laying down, and the manatees were missing (hopefully recently rehabbed and released, I guess).
We found a Frisch’s, ordered them their disgusting cheeseburgers with tartar sauce (EW.) and moved along.
We made really good time getting in to downtown and easily beat Mary and Sean to the ball park. Once they arrived, our 5 whole hours of child-supervision ended and it was great.
A bald eagle from the Zoo flew from the outfield to home plate before the game, which was really cool.
Here are some pictures of the stadium from our seats:
Here’s a panoramic picture:
I never went to a Reds game when I was in school in Cincinnati. If I recall correctly, I have been to the opening day (“bro-pening day” if you’re a Swisher/Tribe fan) parade twice (once senior year of high school with my gay HS boyfriend, his mom, and his BFF, and once during college, maybe?) Anyway, I can add the Great American Ball Park to the list of baseball stadiums I’ve been to (Progressive Field, Comerica, Shea Stadium, AT&T Park, and Great American Ball Park). The Reds kind of blow, and even Brian didn’t know much about the Reds or the Nationals. I am not sure how much learning Drew did. I tried to bribe him to ask Brian more questions by offering a quarter every time he stumped Brian, but I don’t think he cared much.
Besides the bald eagle, we were treated to music from the Cincinnati Pops. They played the Anthem, and then they played after the game, including during the post-game fireworks. It was excellent.
Here are some pictures I took during the fireworks while Drew slept on my arm:
We spent the night in Cincinnati, had tasty First Watch with Mary’s peeps this morning, and then headed home.