Fall Vacation 2005

Fall Vacation 2005

Animals and people, that’s what we saw on our vacation this year. We took a mini vacation, really more of a road trip, to the Rolling Hills Wildlife Adventure in Salina Kansas, and to the Kansas State Fair in Hutchison Kansas. Rolling Hills is a cross between a private zoo and a natural history museum. On one side of the park you see liven animals presented in a spacious, well-planned zoo. On the other side you see stuffed and model animals presented in dioramas of natural settings. The zoo was nice, and we had a great time interacting with a panther that thought Annie was interesting enough to try to lick and paw through the glass. The museum was just strange. It was interesting to see how animals interact, but a bit odd looking at these creatures frozen in time and space in the comfort of an air-conditioned building after watching them live minutes before.

That night we stayed with Rick and Carol Showalter in Salina. It was a good visit and they were there to see Annie push herself into a sitting position for the first time.

The next day we drove to the State Fair where we started by looking at the livestock. Of course, not being farmers, most of this was lost on us, but Isaiah enjoyed seeing so many cows, chickens, ducks, rabbits, and horses up close. The highlight was probably the rabbits as we spent a good half hour looking at the different variety of rabbits and comparing their ears, size, color, and fur. We attempted to meet Nathan and Rebekah Johnson for lunch, but things didn’t work out so well. However, we did enjoy food from the Our Lady of Guadalupe stand. Later Rebekah watched the kids for a few minutes while Melissa and I rode the Windmill Ride. It was quaint, and we can now say we did it. Next we watched a large Men’s Barbershop Chorus perform, then the Manhattan Pops Choir, but it was so windy we couldn’t hear them very well. We were a bit confused when they opened their show with a rather dark song that centered around the word “Wicked”. It seemed odd to have young people in flashy show choir costumes start a show with such a dark song, but we later figured out that they were doing a medley from the musical Wicked. Of course, we took time to see most of the vendors selling stuff. We even bought a set of rubber brooms. On the way home we listened to the live broadcast of A Prairie Home Companion live from the State Fair that we couldn’t afford to attend. I thought they were a little too critical of Kansas but everyone seemed to enjoy being made fun of.

Overall, it was a fun trip. Isaiah seemed to enjoy most of it and we had a good visit with Rick and Carol. It would have been nice to actually take more than a day off of work, but that will happen eventually.