You know how it is when time plays tricks on you? When you do things – not so long ago- but in retrospect, it seems like forever?

This trip, like every trip, was like that. Day One was barely ten days ago, but it could be months, for all I know.  It began in Cleveland, where Michael did a tour of the Catholic Marketing Network show after dropping us off at the Zoo, a place which I wondered if I had been to before, but thought as we went in, "Nah. It just reminds me of the Louisville Zoo, which I know I’ve been to."

It took a while – entering the Wolf Wilderness, to be exact   – to finally produce the "Aha" moment in which I realized that I had,indeed, been to this Zoo before (the year we visited Cleveland and ended up in a hot, darkened Byzantine Catholic Church, a hot, darkened Benedictine monastery, and a  hot, hot, HOT  Residence Inn, being, as we found ourselves, smack in ground zero of the great Northeast Blackout of 2003 the very evening it hit. ). In my own defense, I think the whole Australian exhibit, to which we turned first, is fairly new, which threw me off.

Speaking of throwing.

This giraffe interested all of us because it was so dark. It interested us so much that by the time I glanced down at Michael, he was sitting on the ground with only one sandal on, and he was working mighty hard on removing that one.

Luckily, I caught him before he could toss Sandal #2 to follow its mate.

In the giraffe exhibit. As in…into the giraffe exhibit.

Very nice, patient keepers there at the Cleveland Zoo. I’m thinking, though, that if had been the lions, we might just have been out of luck.

So, camels were ridden, sandals were thrown. A decent few hours spent.

And then onward to Niagara, which we reached around 8, I think. Not our first visit, but you know, it was on the way, we have hotel points to burn, so why not just stay in Niagara Falls? Nice view, eh?

I’d still like to visit the place in the winter someday…

Room with a view: