Thursday, May 16

Yesterday we visited the Cincinnati Zoo.  It was a perfect day and easy to see why the Cincy zoo is the #2 zoo in the country.  Although it is small, because it is land-locked, it is beautiful and they have been very busy remodeling and even improved the parking.  The baby camel was one of our favorites and they had some fascinating animals in the cat house including a very cool ardvark and an ardwolf.
This morning we went to the Headwaters of the Big Darby restoration project in Logan county.  Our friend Gary left money in his estate to The Nature Conservancy and it was used to build a trail through the project that connects the wetlands area to the overlook at the source of the Darby. The area, not far from the Honda plant, had been drained and the spring fed stream was running in a ditch along route 33.  The Nature Conservancy was able to secure the farm land and they have successfully restored the stream bed to it's natural state.  The trail is a mile in and a mile back.  It was quite a trek but well worth it to see the sign at the deck giving tribute to Gary.  I think Gary would be very pleased.