I'd failed to mention last Monday's trip to Busch Gardens; it’s one of those things that seems better with the gild of nostalgia, even the insti-nostalgia of only a week's fermentation.
Including the nostalgia of the anticipation driving there. Fresh, relaxed from two days at the beach, it felt Kings Island-y with the retired guys who get their authority fix from being able to wield a red parking stick, pointing to the spot you’re supposed to park and if you don’t!
Well we didn’t (we'd misunderstood) but were soon corrected.
Then we walked on a cloudless Florida day to the tram, a wonderful invention that constantly picks people up and deposits them at the park entrance. We waited in line there while a clown on stilts entertained the crowd and even though we found we hadn’t needed to wait in line after all it didn’t much matter.
The novelty and pure maze-like aspect of the park was pleasing. We had a map but didn’t follow it too closely. We wandered to the bird part of the park and there saw vivid birds like a bright Camaro-red flamingo under netting above a delightfully landscaped pathway. The sun danced on the waters as ducks went by. I could’ve spent an hour or more there.
We went to the interactive bird exhibit where a sign warned that the Lories could land on your shoulder at any moment though we quickly surmised it helped if you had a cup of Lory food on your shoulder. My wife surprised me by expressing no great desire to interact with them even though I thought it was the reason we came.
But we got food and got the birdies to land on us. And then we went on a sky ride that allowed us a birds-eye view of the Busch Garden's Serengeti plain. Then a delicious lunch at the Crown restaurant where we ate on a 2nd floor balcony that overlooked distant giraffe and zebra. I had the most delectable Anheiser beer-battered fish I’d ever eaten. My wife uncharacteristically ordered a beer and it, a Bud light, came in a grey metal, flute bottle that gave it the cachet of a fine Merlot. The lush restaurant was modeled after some sort of British hunting lodge, as if out of the Theodore Roosevelt era; antlers of various African species were mounted near the hostess stand and the walls were filled with 19th century portraits, presumably reproductions of Busch ancestors.
After lunch we headed toward the hippos, though from a greater distance than I would’ve liked. Their shiny, leathery skin stretched in astonishing expanses. But “stretch” is somewhat a misnomer given the double-chins they had!
We also saw lions and tigers (no bears), and ingeniously close via the inventive viewing areas. Later a train trip gave a close-up of zebras as well as the whole park. The employees were apparently instructed to wave, but you can’t mandate enthusiasm so it was humorous, if embarrassing, to see the half-hearted attempts of some of the rail employees. Shades of the “Sign of Peace” at Mass?
This wave thing seems a tradition handed down to train travel from ship travel and the romance of it seems vaguely connected to the Titanic in which no film version has resisted the scene of joyous passengers on the maiden voyage waving in their fortunateness to those still on land. We were actors in this historic re-enactment for even though the train deposited us less than a mile from where we got on, we waved to strangers as if going on a long journey across the Atlantic, as if it might be our last, but then there’s a honesty in that given the precariousness of the flesh. If the Titanic taught anything it's the hubris of betting on what in human terms looks to be inevitable.
After the train trip I saw a sign promising a “baby gorilla” and my wife can resist no animal with the adjective “baby” in front of it. We hit the surprisingly long pathway to see it (the legs were complaining by this time) but came only to a curmudgeonly gorilla with his arms crossed. After awhile the baby sauntered by and we were all transfixed by his youthful vigor and curiosity. He tried, over and over, to stand on two different plants that were just far enough apart to make this act difficult...
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