In the weeks since our last posting, we’ve returned to Buffalo and settled back in.  Melodia and the kids had enjoyed 6 full weeks in Tampa, FL with Lala and Lalo (Melodia’s parents), and so getting “settled” back into our Buffalo apartment best describes the transition. I have started a rather heavy (5 classes, MWR 1200-330/400p, T 800a-400p) summer school teaching schedule, but we figured, with the economy as it is, taking all the overtime/extra pay one can is probably a good thing. The weather in Buffalo has finally climbed to temperatures that allow us to keep the windows open all night without freezing (though it’s dipped into the 40s a few nights). The pool is open at the apartment complex, but somehow, 76 just isn’t warm enough when it’s water.  I take 76-degree air all summer, but 76-degree water is just downright cold.  I need about 86-degree water, but unfortunately, this apartment’s pool is not heated.  I know, time to move.

So we’re easing into summer and trying to enjoy it.  I know that, like this last year, summer may just fly by, too.  So we’re trying to soak up all the time we can, enjoying weekend trips and morning (pre-summer school afternoon classes) times together. The start of summer allows us to enjoy one other activity that we’re fond of as a family… looking for “selling toys,” that’s the kids’ lingo for garage saleing.

Every Friday morning we’re out by 8 or 9 with the GPS filled up with the weekend’s garage sales. In two years of doing this as a family activity, I think Melodia and I have each bought about 1 thing.  But, the kids always come home with 2 or 3 toys to add to their coffers. And we’re ok with it, as the prices are so minimal. Last week, will scored a new tricycle (that’s motorcycle looking) and McKinely found a large, plastic dollhouse, each for $5 bucks.  We also added to our kids’ book collection and scored about 20 coloring books (a good find).

The funny thing is, despite never really buying anything for myself at these, I love the stuff we find for the kids.  And most of these sales are loaded with kid’s items.  Of course, soon enough, we’ll probably have to have our own sale to sell it all back!

This last weekend we decided to head down to Allegheny State Park and rent a cabin for the night. We’ve been looking at pop-up campers and will likely buy a used one before summer’s out.  I think we’ve settled on the pop-up as making more sense than a travel trailer for us right now.  We’d even talked about tenting it a few times to see how that goes.  In the end, it’s all about just getting the kids out camping.  I’m so thankful that my parents did that with my sister and I when we were little.  That, coupled with growing up in the country in Michigan, are the two biggest things that likely factored into my lifelong love for nature.  I’d like to instill that same love in my kids’ hearts.  And it’s not hard to do; the kids love camping… already.  It’s almost like it’s innate.  Then again, I might argue, we were originally born and raised in a garden, outdoors… I mean, weren’t Adam and Eve both campers?

The cabin was an interesting experience. With Izzabelly at 10 months, any kind of camping with her is still a challenge… bottles, diapers, her crawling around, etc.  But nonetheless, we’re braving it. Gotta start sometime, and there’s so many other things that we’ve not started early enough (e.g., swimming lessons).

Allegheny SP was beautiful.  We took an evening drive to look for wildlife; the kids love looking for deer. We spotted many deer, a skunk, and a raccoon.  I also discovered an Eastern Newt while walking and we enjoyed looking at it, holding it, and looking it up in our Audubon: First Field Guide to Amphibians.  We bought the kids the First Field Guide set because they love creatures and learning, and the set helps us to teach them about different things in nature. The bright orange of the Eastern Newt made him especially fun to look at.   We also discovered grasshoppers, caterpillars (which Wil enjoyed for the whole day in a makeshift empty waterbottle terrarium), and Osprey atop a telephone pole nest.

We drove all throughout the park on Saturday morning, visiting areas we’d not seen before.  I’d been in the park on 2 or 3 other occasions, but Melodia had only been there once.  All in all, it was a wonderful trip.  It made us eager for more, and we should be planning them; but we’ve also been taking the last week day by day.

We’re on the hunt for a new apartment, duplex or country house rental.  That’s taking up  some time right now.  We’ve just outgrown our little 2 bedroom, one year experiment in under 800 square feet.  So we’ll be moving stuff in the next month (a task I really dislike).  Living in our old North Buffalo house for 3.5 years was nice in that I didn’t move stuff two summers in a row!  But, this year, it’s moving, moving, moving…

The thought of working 4 days a week all summer (remember, I have a teacher’s mentality, not a 40 hour, 50 weeks per year mentality) coupled with moving this summer is my gray cl0ud!  Getting out on the weekends for adventures, Friday morning garage sales, and things along these lines are my sunshine.

I should also slip in here that I am amazed how much more beautiful my wife becomes with each new day.  It’s so unfair.  I’m just getting older, grayer, heavier, and she’s just getting prettier, wiser, wonderful-er.   It’s really something to behold.  I am such a lucky man. She is also my sunshine, and I love her deeply.

That’s a quick recap on us.  It’s 65 on the porch this morning, and Wil is riding his scooter on the sidewalk in his pajamas.   Behind me, inside the apartment, just past the open screen door, McKinley sits playing with her “new to her” dollhouse.  All is as it should be.  These moments are treasures.

To all reading, I hope you find these treasures today in your life.

Melodia wrote about it, so I don’t need to, but I will say that the 2-bedroom, 2-bathroom suites were smartly designed and definitely beg for us to return for a longer stay. The quietness of this small town and surrounding countryside offer fun and potential discovery for those willing to uncover it, but are definitely not the ready-made, cookie-cutter, this-is-where-to-go vacation that some places offer. I much prefer to discover my vacation rather than have it dictated to me.

We managed our way out of the hotel about 930am and headed out for the first of 3 legs today. The first, an hour drive to the Mountain Mill Zoo. I was a little skeptical when I placed this stop on the itinerary. The website doesn’t offer much in the way of really understanding this zoo. In fact, it sounded much like this could be a private, one-man-dream, backyard-adventure. The lack of a “physical address” when looking at their website for directions, raised my concerns and suspicions. It was also clear from the googling that this was a small zoo.

Now, I don’t want to knock small zoos. In many ways, small zoos have an advantage or a middle-sized or large/mega-zoo. Their advantage is that the customer understands going in, this will be a limited zoo. The expectations are set lower, and in many ways, it leaves room to be surprised.

Nonetheless, we contemplated crossing this leg off in order to make better time, as we had 3 legs totaling 7+ hours of drive time today. A big haul, but we needed to cover some ground. Still, we resisted, deciding to stick with the plan and see what it had to offer.

This zoo is set up in the mountains behind the city of Roanoke, VA. Arriving at the mountaintop, we pulled off into the little parking lot that serves the zoo and took off on what was a rather long walk to the entrance. Though I didn’t mind it much, for the size of the zoo (I.e., knowing it was a small zoo, having a larger zoo’s distance from car to front door was disconcerting).

At the front gate, we checked the prices. I wasn’t sure, well, I was pretty sure that our zoo pass would not get free admission to this zoo based on what I’d read. The zoo prices were such that it’d have cost us $20 bucks to enter (paying for myself, Melodia, and Wil – McKinley and Izzabelle, as 2-and-unders, were free, so it’d be even more for us in the future!).

Now, that would have turned me around right there. But, I decided to see what the discount on the zoo pass was. Turns out, our pass entitled us to 50% off their admission rates, so it ended up being just under $10 bucks. That was fine in my opinion, I don’t mind donating some money to their bottom line. So we paid and entered.

I could go on here describing the exhibits, but I will spoil the ending right now and just blurt it out. This was, for us, one of those little gems. Sometimes, we find coal; sometimes, we strike upon a diamond. This little mountain-top zoo was a gem and worth the experience (albeit, I still wouldn’t have dished out $20, or $30 when all kids require payment -I.e., are 3 or older). That cost would have likely held me back. But as little zoos go, this was a great one.

The layout of the zoo made for quick and easy travel to the next exhibit of interest. There were no long winding, indirect paths to tire us out and annoy us. Many of the exhibits were accessible from multiple ways, allowing for one to travel one’s own path through the zoo to the animals of most interest.

The zoo featured a Wolverine, which we hadn’t seen in any of the zoos recently, so that was a treat. And it featured one of Papi’s favorite animals, the Red Panda.  The Chattanooga Zoo, another small zoo, showcases these, marketing itself around its Red Panda exhibit; and Melodia and I visited that zoo when we lived in Tennesee.

The Mountain Mill Zoo also had snow leopards in an exhibit that allowed them to be easily viewed (and viewed by the kids easily), rather than hidden in some cave. Snow Leopards are also the type of cat that Tai Lung was in Kung Fu Panda. And Wil really likes Tai Lung, so getting to see those Snow Leopards up close was great.

The zoo features a decked mountain overlook peering down upon the city of Roanoke. What a wonderful vista from a zoo. In addition, as a mountain-top zoo, this zoo wasn’t flat, something that adds interest to me in traveling to zoos. I like zoos with elevation changes, they make the experience more adventurous. Hiking up or down to an exhibit gives one the “what’s coming around the next corner?” experience.

The kids saw several animals worth attending for, in addition to those mentioned, there were black buzzards, a red wolf, and porcupines.

Now admittedly, there were a couple of animals whose exhibits allowed them to hide largely from view, and those 2 exhibits were a little disappointing. But the rest was interesting. One other disappointment, but only for us that day, their train was not running. It was in for repair.

The Mountain Mill Zoo has a little train that runs the perimeter of the entire zoo. Much better than a small track in the middle of a medium zoo, in my opinion. We’d hoped to let the kids ride this, as we had planned a bit of a train day theme. But alas, we’ll have to visit again to test this train out!

There was a small (we mean tiny) play area featuring 3 slides and a couple of climbing features. But, this was excellent.

One of my complaints about other zoos’ play areas is usually the congestion and/or that the area is too enclosed to allow parents to easily get to their kids (think McDonald’s play structure). Having just this one little area, open and exposed, coupled with the low attendance at the zoo, made it a wonderful stop for our kids to enjoy the slides for a bit.

Now, one critique about Mountain Mill Zoo’s slides…. Why do playgrounds insisted on installing “bumpy” slides. These slides were steep and had two bumpy and one smooth slide. The bumpy slides are a little much for kids 2 and under in my opinion, I.e., kids who might not be able to slow themselves. I wish one of those would have been replaced with something simpler. The other slide was steep, but designed such that there was absolutely no chance a kid would slide right off the end.

As a dad, I liked this, too. I hate having to “catch” my kids at the bottom of a poorly designed slide before they fly off into the dirt.

So we enjoyed the Mountain Mill Zoo. We headed out about 1230pm, enroute to Clifton Falls, home of the Chesapeake & Ohio Historical Society.

This was one of those google finds that I was hoping would also be a real gem. I’d called a week earlier to verify that the society’s stockyard and tourist center would be open on Memorial Day. They were very helpful in responding to my phone request and eager for more visitors to see their exhibits.

They even provided me with the phone number of the manager who had said that, if for some reason they had closed early, we could call him and he’d come down and open it for us, and give us the tour. Now where in the world do you find such personalized service these days? And for something that’s free? Not many places.

We arrived at the C & O Historical Society around 145pm. The kids were immediately excited to see the trains. It was all they could think about, “Papi, can we go in the trains?” We were greeted by the station master, who brought us into the station and took us on a full tour of it. He explained some of the history and facts surrounding the C & O railroad, and showed us their working Model Railroad, a recreation of route taken by the original train. He also let Wil ring a train bell that they had on display. McKinley like learning about “Chessie,” the cat that became the mascot for the C & O.

Now admittedly, we are not “train buffs,” and someone did ask us this when we were there! I bought my own model railroad at about 26, while living alone in Pasadena, CA, and really enjoyed having O-Scale trains for a few years. I had also traveled on Amtrak, and read several books on trains, both passenger and freight, during my days of living in Miami, FL. Trains have always fascinated me, with that sort of “child’s fascination” that trains capture many of us with.

It was real joy to take my kids on the auto train at this age to help them build train memories. And this visit was yet another opportunity to connect our children with trains. But I have to admit to not understand our railroad heritage to the degree which I probably should, and perhaps which we all should.

It is, after all, important for us to understand our history, especially as we try to build a future. We forget that often. And we need to be reminded.

But, while not train buffs, this stop proved incredible. It immediately goes on my list of “must-sees” if you are traveling this way.

The staff’s care and education of visitors is unparalleled. Seriously, we felt as if we were getting a private tour of the entire place, and in truth, we were. There was one father and child on their way out as we came in, and one elderly couple who came in at the end of our tour. But these staff members were just as happy to give the 5 of us, one family, the grand tour with talking points in full docent style.

After our inside tour, another staff member took us outside to see their real rolling stock. He started in their model shed, showing us their rideable model train, one of which we’d be riding on at the end of our tour. The kids couldn’t wait.

Then he showed us some historical pieces. Wil and McKinley and I were even allowed to ride one of those handcars or pumper trolleys down a few feet of track and back. It was a neat experience.

We then toured some of the larger rolling stock, a full educational tour of 2 cabooses, a rare C & O Combination Car (#458) which is a half-passenger, half-baggage car., a Gadby’s Tavern, a C & O dining car. These cars have been fully restored and set up with props inside to model their look in use.

I mean, who doesn’t love looking inside old train cars? Seriously. We all loved it, the kids, and the kid in Melodia and I!

We then were taken up into JD Tower, and educated about the purpose of such towers, how they worked, and where this particular tower had originally been, how and why it was restored, etc.

And then finally, we were treated to 4 loops around the track on a live steam miniature train. It’s hard to explain this little train and how cool it was. I just have to show some pictures. Now, I must admit to originally finding these types of trains more for the children at zoos and so on, and for 35 year old, single males, still living in mom’s house.

But we were given the rundown on this locomotive before we rode. The driver, who was also our tour guide of the C & O stock, had explained that he owns one of these at home. I asked him a good deal of questions about the hobby and his interest in it, and what others in the hobby do. I mean, I was curious, and looking for someone to bust the stereotype for me.

He gave me tons of info about these little trains and about the clubs that exist for them, and encouraged me to check out the website www.discoverlivesteam.com to learn even more. I’ll admit, he had my interest.

We then rode the train. The kids sat in a hopper car and had a blast! Melodia and I both then admitted to an interest in this hobby. We asked a few cost questions. The big cost is the engine. So how much for one of these? The cost: (hold your breath, sit down, all that)…. $14, 500. Ok, and then the additional cars, how much, about $600-800 per car.

I looked at Melodia for final approval. “What do you think, honey? Can we get one and get into this?” To my surprise, she said yes. You know, we may just be geeks after all. I mean, we play board games regularly in a group, and well, that could be seen as geeky. And this live steam hobby? Well, if we embark on this path, besides possibly crimping some travel, it would put us into another geeky area, I’d imagine.

Still, take a look at that website. I mean, seriously, what is not to love there?! It’s quite incredible really.

We headed out about 330pm and spent 4 hours driving through the windy, mountainous backcountry of West Virginia. Though long for our travel standards with the kids, it was quite a relaxing, beautiful, adventurous ride. We traveled up and down numerous winding (some with 180 switchbacks) roads that reminded M and I of some pre-kid adventures we had in the mountains of Tennessee. It was awesome, the kind of drive that made us wish we didn’t have to go so far, and could stop off for a while.

It was 930pm before we made it to the hotel, with dinner and snack stops. The Waterfront Place Hotel was another gem I’d found online. I had previously booked some 4-hours of spa treatment in the WP’s 2nd floor spa for M as a present for her, in lieu of flowers for her on Wil’s birthday (the one thing she asked for when we had kids… flowers from the kids on their birthdays).

I figured she wouldn’t mind the missing flowers, and that the spa would be an acceptable substitute. We had a room on a private access floor with a private lounge serving continental breakfast, lunch, and evening o’dourves. Melodia was amazed at the hotel, it’s service, and our room. It was definitely fitting to book something a little more high class for our last evening on the road. I thought we all needed the treat.

Total Travel today: about 7 hours and 300 miles (the backcountry miles really slowed us down, 25 MPH at times!)

As we walked to what should have been our room, Lonni, carrying a very  sleepy Wil, took out his key and slipped it in.  To our horror, as he opened the door, we see a man jump out of bed and run towards us ready to pounce.

Thankfully he was dressed and we apologized and closed the door.

An aside, as a flight attendant I was taught early on, to ALWAYS, lock the hotel room door with every lock it has.

So, Lonni quickly went to the front desk, let them know how embarrassed and scarred we all were and secured us another room with no occupants.

By this time the kids were wide awake and now we had the wonderful job of not only bringing all our things in, but having to put the kids back to bed.

The redeeming quality of this hotel…it was a Hampton Inn.  If you have ever had the pleasure of staying at one you know, the beds are AWESOME.  So once we were settled, we got all tucked in for a nice rest after a very long driving day.

In the morning we got up early to head out to the NC Zoo.  It was a very  overcast day and we knew we would have to contend with the rain eventually, but we were not going to let that stop us and were as prepared as possible.

I knew the NC Zoo was supposed to take 4 to 6 hours to explore completely so I was prepared for a large zoo.  However, I don’t think we were at all aware at how beautiful it would be.

This was no regular zoo, it was an animal reserve.  Each of the animals had acres, not feet, of space for their enclosures.  We were only able to explore Africa and I felt like I was in Africa except for the wooded trails between exhibits.  It was larger than life.  If I were an animal and had to live in a zoo, this would be it!

The kids loved the statues scattered throughout the park for their climbing fun.

I think we took a picture of them on just about every statue, elephants, a rhino, beetles – you name it!

They also loved the helicopter at the wildlife hanger setup on the edge of the preserve, and being a quiet morning in the zoo, the kids were able to spend extra time in the helicopter exploring as there weren’t a ton of families waiting with children to try it out and take some pictures.

We are very aware of what works for toddlers in a zoo.  We rank child  friendliness, not by what rides, or the quality of the “petting zoo” they might have for kids.

We think it is child friendly when we don’t have to lift the kids up to actually see the animals, when kids and families have places to stop and take a break, or stop and really watch the animals, and when kids can walk from exhibit to exhibit – and are eager to – because of fun and interesting things along the way (beyond simple “zoo cards” – cards kids push into sound boxes that tell them things, kids are more tactile than auditory, then want to touch, not listen, so kid friendly zoos, in our minds, let them touch!).

This was definitely a zoo we would like to come back to visit again.  i mean we only got to visit Africa, we didn’t even see North America.

When we returned to the hotel we found it looked very much like a war zone. It was under renovation and when we arrived they had just lost all power and there was a work crew tearing up tile in the front making a ton of noise.  We packed our things quickly and left for our ride to Floyd, VA.

Lonni found this little town online and thought the hotel would be an  interesting stay.  He was right.  It was a quaint little town with a great general store and the Hotel Floyd was beautiful.

We had a two bedroom suite with flat screen TV in every room, satellite and what was supposed to be Internet service. 

Everything was great until we went to check in, and they didn’t have our reservation and gave us a different room from the one we requested and then the Internet did not work.  We were not able to blog on-time that night because of it.  And that was really frustrating.

Lonni wrote a note on one of their “customer” cards about it, in the room.  But the bottom line is, little things, like Internet, like having your reservation actually exist – those are management things.  A beautiful hotel?  That’s a builder/designer thing.  And the builder/designers, they don’t run the hotel.  Beautiful management makes an establish, and the not-so-beautiful management will break it.  Thus, we spent that night with mixed feelings.  We loved the suite, but we were frustrated by the experience thus far.

We walked to dinner at this little Mexican restaurant, El Charro.  The food there was definitely not as good as we have had it elsewhere.  But it was food, and Mexican food at that (we do love our Mexican food).  We headed back and went to bed.

Not to steal too much from the next morning’s post, but we had to login later to post, so I thought I’d add in a bit about the morning resolution of our frustrations.  Lonni chatted with the manager on Monday (he hadn’t been there when we checked in).  He was apologetic about the problems, particularly the internet – which he knew had been happening on and off.

Lonni also dug out his confirmation number and showed the managers.  It was hard to refute our missing reservation since Lonni’s confirmation number lined up with their sequencing… they just didn’t have his in the sequence.  But it demonstrated that it was something he couldn’t have made up or guessed at, and we wanted them to know that this was a pre-planned trip (and really planned!).

Lonni didn’t ask for it, but the manager said he’d refund a portion of the room totalling about 33% of the night’s cost.  That was a heafty refund on their part, and the manager’s friendliness evidence that, despite his staff, he knew a thing or two about customer service.

Given that, it’s likely that we’ll try to find a way to stay here again in the future for a multi-day stay, and give them another chance to see how it goes.  They seem to be on the cusp of having a great little hospitality business, with just a few kinks to work out. Once those are, they’ll be a great stay in the Roanoke and Western Virginia area.

Yesterday was set up as our longest day of driving. That meant, from the get-go, that this would be a tiring travel day.

We awoke to yet more rain as the Southeast continues to be drenched.  Tybee Island was no different.  The rain was falling, which ruled out a morning walk on the beach that we had hoped to sneak in before getting on the road.  But that was ok.  We had complimentary breakfast at the hotel.  The kids filled their tummies.  It’s nice that, on the whole, the assortment of fruit and donuts and muffins is exactly the kind of thing the kids like.  Of course, I’d like eggs, maybe some waffles, but as long as the kids get a full meal in, that makes road travel much easier.

So I pulled the Jeep under the covered hotel entrance and we packed back up, hitting the road about 10am.

Around 1pm, we hit Columbia, South Carolina, home of the Riverbanks Zoo.  The zoo was particularly packed for a rainy Saturday afternoon. Luckily, we arrived between downpours and managed to stay dry.

As part of our zoo-pass fun and traveling with our kids to other zoos and evaluating them, Melodia and I made our mental lists of likes and dislikes as we explored this zoo.

The zoo had some attractive exhibits, a good zoo store, and a few things for kids.  We typically avoid all playground areas like the plague, as they are usually too small and overpopulated on a trip to the zoo.

The store’s are of interest to us.  With our annual zoo pass that we purchase from the Buffalo Zoo for $100 per year, we get in free to about 100 zoos in the U.S.  We like buying the pass, and consider it our donation to the zoos. When we’re at another zoo, we’ll typically shop in their zoo store and allow the kids to pick out something for themselves.  While zoo stores are admittedly overpriced and many times feature all of the same content of other zoo stores, we consider shopping at the zoo store our way of donating to that particular zoo.  Thus, we don’t concern ourselves with it too much.

We interested our kids in Schleich animals at an early age, and while we prefer those to Safari Limited, since most zoos carry Safari (and some Schleich), that’s our typical zoo contribution.  The kids add an animal to their collection.  They love it, and we like their growing collection of a hundred-plus animals. We’ve really gotten bang-for-the-buck out of those animal purchases over the years.

Well, I mentioned earlier that we made our list about the pluses and minuses of the zoos we travel, so here’s the other side.  I had too major thoughts really.

One is this, and it applies to many zoos, zoos should quit trying to bill themselves as kid-friendly places to go if their exhibits cannot be seen by an individual under 42-inches tall.  This is my number one pet-peeve related to zoo travel. Too many zoos have created enclosures that kids cannot enjoy without being lifted up by their parents.  Zoos, here this, you are NOT kid-friendly if kids cannot enjoy your exhibits at their level.  You are adult friendly, so stop all your advertising, or invest in changing the way animal exibits are set up!

Some zoos do this really well, and we’ve mentioned them before.  Our Erie Zoo trip showed us that.  And when Melodia posts about the NC Zoo, that’s something they do well, too.  But it’s extremely frustrating for me as a dad that a little person cannot walk up and see the Lions in all their glory.  Why don’t people try standing on their knees when they imagine the creation of these things?!  I often get down to my son and daughter’s height so I can see the world as they do – and sometimes, depending upon the place, it’s very disappointing.  If adults weren’t there to point things out, it’d be like just another walk for the kids, and they’d have missed many of the animals.

So the Riverbanks Zoo fails on the kid-friendly side in my opinion… because having a play area, a few statues to climb on, and a zoo store, don’t make a zoo kid-friendly, being able to see the animals as a kid, at kid-height, is the number one requirement in my book.  I want my kids to run up to the next exhibit, “Papi, come over here; papi, look at these x.  Wow!”  Rather than, “Papi, lift me up; papi, what’s in there?”  Zoo’s and those who work in them should shutter everytime they here a kid in their park utter one of these phrases!

My second critique: there was almost no place to sit (which couples with my third and final critique below. But seriously, it felt like we were at the cattle call of zoos– just roll everyone on through. Quick, look at this, then keep moving.  Why in the world zoos choose not to create seating for extended viewing time of their animals and/or for families is beyond me. One would think, that according to solid marketing principles, the goal would be keep your customers attention as long as you can.

We bought ice cream (Go Dipping Dots!) at a Kiosk station along the exibits but we had no place to sit with the kids and enjoy it.  Translated, eating ice cream while standing as a 4- or 3-year-old and trying to beat “the Melt” isn’t fun. Like my critique here, it just felt like “hurry up, hurry up.”   And I’m back to the kid-friendly zoo notion.  The Riverbanks Zoo just failed to be a family friendly place, and probably should be avoided by families traveling the country looking for such zoos and experiences for their kids.

One final critique: why do zoos, parks, and other things create expansive out of the way loops to direct their traffic?  I think it’s funny at any zoo when there is about only two ways to walk the zoo, clockwise or counter, and that the travel time between exibits is more for avid hikers than zoo-goers. The one exception, here?  If the zoo’s enclosures are so expansive that they dictate longer walks between them.  I’m 100% ok with a hike when it’s because animals are living on acres rather than square feet.

Melodia and I try not to push that question too much in front of our young kids, but we certainly feel at times, touring some zoos, that we’re looking at animal jails – and probably should be sad for these creatures. Again, some zoos do it right – the wildlife wilderness are of the NC Zoo demonstrates that, and I’ll gladly trek the distance with my kids knowing that the elephants, rhinos, and others have so many acres to wander.

To recap, it was fun to explore a new zoo and see what they had to offer, but other than checking another zoo off the list, we weren’t overly impressed with the layout and design of the Riverbanks Zoo. Still, it was worth the trip.

After heading out, we stopped at a China Buffet for lunch.  Then, we drove to North Carolina.  This was our longest day of traveling, and we really felt it.  As we use this trip as a test trip for future fun with the kids, we’ve been compiling our list of how we’d like to road trip. Two items now on that list:

• Travel in 2-hour or less stints, 120 or so miles between sites of interest
• Stay in places for 2 nights, so that there is one day of non-travel between sites (this has been especially key in places where we’ve really enjoyed the hotel we have been in – and of course, in those with much to see and do; but the main issue is having down-time, having the ability to relax and not always feel on the go — this trip has necessitated the on-the-go feeling, because we’ve got a time limit in which to get home, but it’s also reminded us that we want a more leisurely pace when we can)

In the evening, we made one more stop before arriving at the hotel.  The REI store in Greensboro, NC.  I love REI, and look for chances to get into their stores when on the road (like I do for Chipotle’s).

Melodia and I long for more outdoor (hiking, backpacking, camping, rock climbing, fishing, kayak/canoeing, etc.) time, and stores like REI, Gander Mountain, Bass Pro, Eastern Mountain Sports, etc. always allow us to “dream” a little.  And the kids love exploring them, too, especially all the tents and boats set up.  It’s like a playground for them.

We had one of those surprise finds at the REI tonight.  We’ve been wanting to buy a couple of kites and have some fun with those for the kids.  REI had a couple of kites, albeit a bit pricey, that were the traditional triangle, built out of ripstop nylon and complete with their own small carry bag.  So we bought them for the kids.  We’re hoping for a windy opportunity on the trip so that they can fly them before we arrive home.   We also picked up a few more clothing items for ourselves and the kids.

We arrived at our hotel about 900pm that night.  This provided for one final story – one which I’m not sure if I find funny or am upset about. Time will tell, and I guess I could write it down, either way in our Chronicles here.  We checked in and took the kids to the room. Upon opening the door, and old man flew up out of his bed in full karate-chop hand action, making a startled sound.  His wife still in the bed.

Now I am sure this is a good reminder to them and to us all about the deadbolts on hotel doors.  Had they had the deadbolt on, the fact that the hotel just assigned us to their room and gave me their room key would have been nothing other than an inconvenience to us both.  But since they didn’t and we were walking into their room, it was quite, well off-putting for both parties.

It was also the type of thing where the kids were have asleep and this stranger jumping out at us in the middle of the night in a strange place quickly woke the kids (and could have sent them into crying and possible nightmares), so that part upsets me.

What is perhaps even more off-putting, is that the front desk staff of the Hampton Inn, Asheboro did little in the way of apology for us.  In fact, their customer service person behind the counter almost acted more annoyed (both at the co-worker who might have created this situation and at the notion of having to rebook me and reissue new room keys).  It took the utmost of restraint not to reach across the counter and drive my point home, if you know what I’m saying.

Seriously, we don’t train people in quality customer service anymore.  We don’t.  And you get what you pay for.  And as long as corporate America exists and thrives, there is no need for customer service.  Seriously, it doesn’t matter if they please me or not, most hotels, airlines, cruises and other travel-industry items are booked based on one key factor, price.  As long as customers remain loyal to the price more than anything else, the Hampton and any other travel-industry business, need not worry about customer service.  Bad service at the hotel, they need only lower the rates below their competitors, and they’ll secure customers.

It’s sad, isn’t it?  But this is the way it is. Since I teach customer service to college students, and worked in it for 2 years with an airline, I’m reminded of it often.

But I would have appreciated a little more empathy from behind the counter.  I wasn’t asking for a free night, I wasn’t even asking for extra pillows, but it sure stunk to feel like her apology was uttered under her breath and that she was annoyed – annoyed, my kids were almost asleep… now, they’re wired and on-guard for anymore surprise karate-chopping old men that this hotel might have to offer!  And as a result, weren’t back to sleep until after 10pm.  Annoyed?  come sleep in my room now, I’m mean, come wait for the kids to settle back down so you can fall asleep.

Now, on the plus side, I will say that the beds at the Hampton were so fluffy and comfy, that it was great to ease back into them after such a long day, albeit an hour later than expected.

Totals for the day, about 6 hours on the road and 340 or so miles.