Every (Flying) Cloud Has A Silver Lining: July 2020

This weekend was supposed to be my Shooting Sports Rally but the close proximity of a firing range and COVID concerns made that rally not happen, so instead, Dan & I put our heads together and Dan cam up with a campout at Dillon State Park East of Columbus, OH near Zanesville, OH and we would go to The Wilds on Saturday afternoon There was actually a lot to do in Zanesville and we didn't have time for a few things we all wanted to do. There was Tom's Ice Cream, the world famous Y-Bridge, the bronze sculpture museum, of course there's The Wilds nearby and several other fun things to do. Here's the link to The Wilds:

https://thewilds.columbuszoo.org/home/visit/plan-your-visit/daily-tours

It all worked out as planned and all 14 people (!) in attendance had a blast! We had 6 Airstream's and one SOB. We stayed away from typical "rally" things like pot luck dinners and such and instead everyone did their own food for the most part and we all ate together at our camp chairs and a few at picnic tables. Due to temps in the 90's we never had a campfire or even a propane fire pit. Just too hot!

The Wilds was a blast and I highly recommend it, however, doing it in the cooler Spring or Fall might be smarter. It was hot but not unbearable. The tour is approximately 2 - 2.5 hours long in a modified open-air school bus with basically no sides but does have a roof-type cover. The way it works is like a African safari with all the animals roaming "free". I say that with quotes because, of course they are penned but the pens are crazy big like 1000 acres each. I got some good photos of a lot of the animals and some not-so-good pics, too. The bus was bumpy as an Earthquake but tolerable. COVID actually worked in our favor for this tour because the bus was at 50% capacity and if it were full capacity with temps in the 90's that would have been horrendous.

Enjoy the pics...

This photo courtesy of the internet as I forgot to take a picture of the sign:

Dan & Dawn's '06 Airstream Classic as seen from my campsite next door -

Not part of The Wilds, a white tail deer friend plays peek-a-boo behind Dan & Dawn's camp site!

Penny (l) and Rupert (r). These kids belong to Suzie & John

Carie & Dan chatting it up in the shade backdropped by Larry's '89 Airstream Excella

Carie, Dan, John

Dawn & Larry -

We all took a trip over to check out the lake beach at Dillon state park -

At one point we went in to the town of Zaneville to the probably not-so-famous Tom's Ice Cream

Suzie & John masked up at Tom's!

Inside Tom's

Here's the famous Y-Bridge that actually goes out over the river then Y's out in two different direction right over the river. It turns out John has history here because back in the early 80's when he was starting out in what would become his career his then boss and their customer walked several of them out over this bridge on beams before the resurfacing was completed! He says it was a little unnerving to be up there with "no net" over the water on a narrow beam!

The county courthouse in the distance looking up river from the Y-Bridge -

John, Suzie, Carie with the Y-Bridge in the background

The courthouse in the background

This is where these pictures were taken from. A great overlook for the bridge, river and town!

Ok, so let's go to The Wilds now!

The first stop on the tour was these Asian deer, I believe they were Indochina Sika Deer

A rhino & baby in the distant muck -

Bactrian Camels - Mongolia

Persian Onager's from Iran:

The Budgerigar building (Called "Budgie's for short):

Suzie hand feeding some Budgie's!

Sichuan Takin from China -

Przewalski's Wild Horses from Europe, Asia, Mongolia, China. They were near extinction

Dhole - India, Asia...

African Painted Dog. Poor picture due to their distance away and they were just laying still in the little shade they had trying to stay cool. Too bad I couldn't get a better picture because they look pretty cool.