Aylmer Express "MoHo" Extravaganza 2006

Today is Friday Sept 22nd and it marks almost exactly three months since the Friday we left. So that means that it is time for a third installment on how the budget is going. Our daily costs for each category are as follows:

Accommodation: $29 (AVG from Aug = $30, July = $19)
Food: $52 (AVG from Aug = $48, July = $48)
Entertainment: $27 (AVG from Aug = $24, July = $19)
Misc: $32 (AVG from Aug = $26, July = $25)
MoHo/Auto Maint: $12 (AVG from Aug = $15, July = $15)
MoHo/Auto Gas: $37 (AVG from Aug = $44, July = $48)

And our current km/day works out to be:
MoHo: 115 (AVG from Aug = 128, July = 168)
Matrix: 62 (AVG from Aug = 54, July = 39)

So far, so good, as we are still managing to stay under budget.


As avid readers of the blog already know, we went to the zoo in St. Louis back in July and it was fantastic. The only downside of the zoo in St. Louis seems to be the fact that it pretty much annihilates your desire to go to any other zoo since you are likely going to be disappointed. We had heard lots of very good things about the San Diego zoo but we just couldn’t work up the will to go. However, we heard about something a little different in the area called the Wild Animal Park. This place is apparently associated with the San Diego zoo but the difference is that the animals are able to roam free within huge tracts of land (my apologies to those Monty Python fans out there for using that expression). And, in many cases, they have different types of animals sharing the same space making it a more natural environment. My guess is that they try to avoid including predators with their prey. Of course, if they did, it may just minimize the hassles associated with feeding time … and, ultimately, I suppose the problem would go away. But I digress. So we decided to check out the Wild Animal Park. It turned out to be very cool. We started off with the train ride that takes you all around the entire park. The driver provides commentary on the wildlife that can be seen and on this trip we learned that one of their goals is to help save many endangered species. Some of the more impressive creatures we saw while we were there include a Tiger (an awesome animal to see in real life), two types of Condors (wing span up to 10 feet!), Giraffes (tallest animal in the world), African Caracal (coolest ears in the cat family), a baby elephant (over 200 pounds at birth), and even, one of my favorites from the St. Louis zoo, a Wild Somalian Ass (best name in the animal kingdom, eh?). The baby elephant we saw had just been born 11 days earlier and this was the first day she was introduced to the rest of the pack. Very cute. We also had the pleasure of making it to the Frequent Flier show which was awesome. They somehow trained these birds to fly in and around the audience (we were in an outdoor theatre) and it allowed you to get a feel for just how impressive they are in flight, up close and personal. They had a huge Owl (forget the exact type, I was too busy ducking!), a South American Condor, a talking parrot (check the video) a Peregrine Falcon, the fastest animal in the world, and they even had one of those chicken-ostriches we saw in Winnipeg (better known as a Wild Turkey as pointed out in the blog comments by my buddy Andy) running around the stage area. A must see for anyone making the trip there for sure. And check the videos to see the Parrot in action. We also caught the Elephant show where we saw these massive, six thousand pound beasts balancing on a little stump. I thought this was mighty impressive, and I still think it is, however, the trainer pointed out that when you are that heavy it is imperative that you have pretty dang good balance since falling over can be catastrophic. Good point. And if you think about it for a bit, perhaps evolution has already stripped the gene pool of elephants with poor balance. All in all, it was a great day at Wild Animal Park. We even got a chance to go and pet some of the more tame animals. But that is not all! That night we had been invited to stay at our friend’s place in Orange County, just south of the greater LA area. So off we went to Brian and Louise’s place to spend the weekend. We passed a vineyard on our way there and made a cursory stop to partake in a little wine tasting. Of course we weren’t just doing this frivolously, we were doing this in order to pick an appropriate bottle for dinner that night. Really. It was wonderful to see them again and they were such good hosts. Morgan asked if he could have an orange and Brian went into their backyard and picked a fresh one right off the tree! Sweet! Literally! We enjoyed some very nice wine however, due to circumstances beyond my control, it was mostly Louise and I who were relegated to taking care of the consumption. More on that later, but suffice it to say that a good time was had by all.

Today’s word:

cursory \KUR-suh-ree\, adjective:
Hastily or superficially performed.