Our Pursuit of Happiness: Family Vacation to Ohio

On Memorial Day we all drove up to Columbus, OH, to spend the next few days exploring the city and to rest a bit after a busy school year. Pit stop to stretch our legs and blow some bubbles.

The first stop in town was a visit to Germantown. While many stores and restaurants were closed for the holiday, we walked around the area to take in the European style houses from the 1800s and then found the best bookstore. It had a quaint little garden out front and an amazingly large selection of books. I could have spend the next few days there.

The next morning, we headed to the Columbus Zoo, which is one of the best in the country and home to more than 7,000 animals on over 580 acres. Despite the heat (92F/ 33 C and 92% humidity), we really enjoyed looking at all the animals and the great exhibitions. We ventured to the Heart of Africa exhibit first, which was modeled after an African village and one felt like looking out across a sweeping African savanna where zebras grazed, cranes danced and gazelles leaped.

Elliot "crash landing" a plane:

Up close with a long-time favorite animal of hers:

The children wanted to ride a camel and since Elliot was still too young to ride alone, I jumped on as well. The way these animals walk is so different from a horse's gait and one could easily fall off if it wouldn't be for the seat.

Next, we walked over to North America, where Amelia met her namesake and these two had a few precious moments with each other. These are my favorite pictures of the day.

This polar bear was only 2 years old and looked already very powerful but yet so agile in the water.

The neighbor, Mr. brown bear, was just sleeping the day away.

To cool off from the heat, we stopped by the aquarium for a bit, where a diver fed the fish.

Lettuce was on the menu for the manatees:

After lunch, we visited the reptile house, where the children were able to pet a rainbow boa.

Nice and silly:

At the Australia exhibit, we fed the Lorikeet:

We headed back to the aquarium to pet a star fish and then played some catch with the penguins.

Elliot found his favorite shark: a hammerhead.

The children were lucky to cool off in the splash zone before we went to visit the aviary, the koalas and the kangaroos. We ended the day with a stop at the petting zoo.

Even though we were at the zoo for over 5 hours, we were not able to see all of it. It was just too hot to continue on and most of the animals also preferred to take a long afternoon nap. For sure we will be back sooner than later as we really enjoyed this zoo and maybe next time, we even try out the some rides and/ or adjacent water park.