Illustration Friday: THE ZOO

I've been slacking on my Illustration Friday contributions lately, but I had to get in on this week's topic. Cincinnati has a phenomenal zoo, it's within a mile of my apartment, I used to work there, and I just went there a few weeks ago How could I NOT take the opportunity to chatter (and draw!) about all that??

I don't know about other zoos (I've only been to St. Louis's and DC's) but at the Cincinnati Zoo the peacocks are kept uncaged. They wander all over the park, in the parking lot, and, on one memorable occasion in the summer of 2005, into the gift shop where I was working (a momma peacock and her brood of lined-up chicks browsed the t-shirt section for a while, but didn't end up buying anything).

Needless to say, I'm a huge fan of the zoo. I've made many memories at ours (you think I'm yammering away now? I've barely scratched the surface!!) They're great places to take kids (unless the kid in question wants to get up close and personal with the rhinos... another summer job experience that I won't elaborate on), they do great environmental work through endangered species protection, and provided the set-up for one of the best books ever, Yann Martel's Life of Pi.

Mmm, what a delightful topic. Thanks IF!!

p.s. Anybody else have some Simon & Garfunkel in their head now? Something tells me it's all happening at the zoo....