A soggy afternoon at The Wilds!

Friday
Today was Roger’s birthday, and we had booked tickets to visit the Wilds, a private, non-profit conservation center located on nearly 10,000 acres of reclaimed strip mine land in rural southeastern Ohio. From its inception, The Wilds has been envisioned as a facility that combines cutting-edge conservation science and education programs with visitor opportunities. They run regular tours throughout the day in what appear to be old school buses, with the tops and windows cut off, with a canopy roof. Our time was for 3.15, and it was a 2 1/2 hour drive, so we left about 11.30, and took a picnic with us. The weather was partly sunny and quite humid when we left home, however the weather deteriorated as we headed north east and drew close to the park. By this time it was totally overcast and raining quite steadily. I had meant to put rain jackets in, unfortunately Laura called shortly before we were due to leave the house, and I got distracted and forgot! The tours run rain or shine, only being cancelled or postponed in the event of lightening. We almost chickened out since we had no rain gear, and the weather was clearly not going to let up for a while. Moreover the visibility was so poor, I wasn’t sure how many animals we would see! However, we didn’t want to lose our money, so we went and hoped for the best. We discovered they had cheap rain ponchos for sale in the shop, though they were rather short, but at least they kept our top half dry. The rain persisted for most of the tour, eventually diminishing, and of course, by the time we had finished the tour, the clouds were beginning to break up (central picture)! Fortunately some of the animals were close to the road, and with a bit of doctoring when we got home, some of my photos turned out OK. The animal in my thumbnail is a Sichuan Takin, whose native range includes China and the eastern Himalayas. The tour was 2 1/2 hours long, so we’d decided it would be rather late for eating back in the Cincinnati area, so we had decided to eat at a German restaurant in the German Village area of Columbus, which was on our way home. German Village is a historic area south of downtown Columbus, known for charming brick houses built largely by 19th-century German immigrants. We had to wait for a table, and by this time it was a lovely evening, so we went for a stroll round the charming neighbourhood, bedecked with flowers, while we.waited. We both had the German sausage platter, accompanied by sauerkraut, German Potato salad, apple sauce and a roll. They are also particularly known for their giant cream puffs, so we made sure we saved room to share one!
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