Michael and Mallory: Rochester: Day One

I love my job. I love my responsibilities, the experience I'm getting and how it's helping me develop as a professional. I really can't complain about anything. One thing my job requires me to do is attend some sort of week long conference or training for continuing education. I settled on one that was being held in Rochester, NY. It also occurred to me that these conferences could be considered getaways or vacations for the family...well, at least for some of us. While I'm in class or lecture, Mal and the kids are out hitting the museums and attractions. It's definitely work for Mal too, but the kids love it. So I brought the family along with me for the trip.

One advantage of living in the northeast is you can drive through and see a lot in a short amount of time (unlike driving through Nevada). We went through Portland, ME; Portsmouth, NH; Albany, NY; Syracuse, NY; and of course Rochester. You also feel like you are making a lot more progress by driving through these little states (again, unlike Nevada).

Okay it's Mal here, taking over--sorry for the abruptness, but let's be honest, I'm the one who actually went on all of the outings. Mike can tell you about the OSHA respiratory safety conference if you really want, but we'll save that for later.

Dinner in Portland.

Washington Park in Albany, NY.

Real quick though, an overview of the drive out (I can tell Mike wants to): switched to a rental in Ellsworth (work's dime), stopped in Portland 3 hours later for a stretch and some food (it was okay, can't remember the name of the place), drove until Albany and picnicked at Washington Park, drove PAST our turn-off on the 90, kept driving, stopped at a rest stop so I could get out and yell in the parking lot, kept driving, 20 miles later we found the next exit, took it, paid our toll, got on the 490 and looped back to our hotel a full hour later than we could have and bunked down for the night. The kids did great.

Picnic in the park.

Ooooo, that was fun. Moving on...

Our first day in Rochester was beautiful so we hit up the Seneca Park Zoo. I have to say, although I've been to the San Diego, Oakland, Pheonix and National Zoos and the Animal Kingdom Safari tour, but the Seneca Park Zoo is, I think, the prettiest, funnest zoo I've ever been to. They have a great selection of animals, lots of zoo workers about to show you the coats, bones, paws, claws, and talons of animals, and best of all the habitats aren't overly large--we saw probably 98% of the animals at the zoo!

Madie checks out an emperor penguin.

The best exhibit was the baboons. They had probably 15 baboons in there which really let you see how they interact. The baboon exhibit at Oakland is a little disappointing. If you see any of them, they're just sitting on their big ugly butts with their backs to you. The Seneca Park exhibit was very active. They chased each other around, cleaned each other, and one of them kept sticking this bucket on her head and ramming her friends, who would subsequently yell at her and run off. Then she'd lift it enough to peak out and find a new target and go after that one. It was hilarious! We spent 20 minutes at that exhibit.

Finn had so much fun checking out the different animals--he loved the baboons and sea lions I think the best. They were very active and easy to see from his stroller.

Ya know, at first I thought, hmmm, these poor animals don't have sprawling habitats like they do in the wild, poor things. Then I saw the lions in their rather small, but nice habitat. Up close. Guess what they were doing? The same thing they were doing when I saw them in their vast sprawling habitats: sleeping. Here's the thing: they don't need to hunt so they don't need to cover enough land to have decent hunting. They're cats--they sleep. If we're going to cage wild animals (which is a whole other topic for ethical argument), then we may as well have them in habitats we can view them in. I've been to the Oakland Zoo a hundred times and I've seen the lion once, sitting very far off in the shade (the kids couldn't see him). He was also sleeping.

Fun fact: did you know lionesses can jump 35 feet horizontally? Holy cow. (Or dead cow.)

After Mike got out of class we went to the Joseph Smith Family farm. It's been a while since I've been there, now they have all these cool replicas of some of the buildings that were lost--like the original Joseph Smith home. I'm pretty sure it was made using original methods too--the boards to build the home definitely looked like they were hewn with one of those old draw knives.

Stopped by the Palmyra Temple on our way to the farm.

Inside the remake of the log home. It's a pretty tiny space.

Outside the Joseph Smith log home--a fabulous shot of Finn and Mumma taken by Michael Watkins, you may want to order one for your own family. Ya know what I don't get, HE picked these pictures to go on here--c'mon man. You could at least crop it so you don't ALMOST have my face in but not quite.