enantiornithines
Member
My father recently died, and for personal reasons I have decided I would rather take a week off work and spend an extra thousand dollars to drive across the country then to just ship his car and fly back to Texas.
My plan is to see at least attraction in the morning and then drive 4 to 6 hours every day until I get back to Houston where I now live. Not everything I am going to see is a zoo or potentially going to see but zoos, aquariums, and botanical gardens are kind of my default "I will do this if there is nothing more compelling" plus the Cincinnati zoo and Pittsburgh Aviary are two of the three things that I am definitely going to see and part of the reason for the trip (the third is the St. Louis Botanical Garden). I might potentially see more than one attraction if it is convenient and if anything I am doing in the afternoon is indoors.
When it comes to zoos, my main interests are birds, species you don't see elsewhere often (for example the Scripps Institute of Oceanography had a lot of seahorse relatives that are not sea dragons or pipefish), and really interesting exhibit design. To give examples: I feel that the three best individual exhibit areas I have seen are the Brazos River Country at Cameron Park Zoo in Waco, which single-handedly makes an otherwise unremarkable zoo more than worth visiting and Wings of Asia aviary and the jungle loop section, both at Zoo Miami. I have been to fewer aquariums recently, but the single exhibit that most stood out to me was the Mississippi River exhibit at the Audubon Aquarium in New Orleans.
The route has to take me through Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, and St. Louis because of the things I want to see in those cities, but I am still trying to make a couple of other decisions about the route, as well as several decisions contingent on which route I take, for which I have I guess broadly six zoo-related questions:
1. To get to Pittsburgh in a reasonable time, the natural stopping point is Scranton (or Wilkes-Barre, but the attractions there seem kind of bare). In Scranton it seems like the top thing to do is Steamtown and the Trolley Museum next door, but I see that there is also the Electric City Aquarium and Reptile Den. This appears to be a small operation, and small zoos intrigue me because they do things differently. In my experience that usually translate to doing things a little bit worse in almost every way than the bigger AZA zoos, but sometimes they surprise me and when you have a combination of passionate management and interesting exhibit design I can find them more fun than anything an AZA zoo offers. So naturally, I am wondering: has anyone been here, and if so first of all is it worth visiting? And second of all is it more worth visiting than Steamtown and the Trolley Museum?
2. I have an acquaintance from Ohio who was trying to persuade me to do the Columbus Zoo instead of Cincinnati, but from everything I can tell Cincinnati is a much better zoo for birds, plus fact that it has keas and had both the last known the passenger pigeon and Carolina parakeet, which are also the reasons I wanted to visit it in the first place. However in looking into this I learned about the Newport Aquarium. This is the reason for adding the "maybe a second attraction as long as it's indoors and relatively close by" rule. However, I'm still not completely sure it's worth it with also going to the Cincinnati zoo and the longest stretch of driving ahead of me (unless I break it up, see point three). Obviously only I can decide if that's worthwhile, but in terms of worthwhileness compared to the Cincinnati Zoo, how worthwhile is it?
3. I can take up to six days to do this trip, although I could potentially do it in five. There are two places I could break it up. One option is to do it in the stretch between Cincinnati and St. Louis. This offers the opportunity to see attractions in Louisville, Indianapolis, and nearby areas and there are a lot of zoos. This includes a "bird park" north of Indianapolis that has no website and where pictures feature things like turkeys, so much as I love birds it doesn't seem compelling. There are also the Indianapolis, Miller Park, and Louisville Zoos. In terms of birds, unusual animals, and interesting exhibit, do any of those stand out enough to merit breaking up the trip here?
4. If I did the trip in five days or broke up the Cincinnati St. Louis leg, the ideal place to stop between St. Louis and Houston would be Little Rock, but I have already been to Garvan Woodland Gardens in the summer (I'd love to go back, but in the spring or fall), and it doesn't look like there is anything else that is particularly interesting to me, not even the zoo. (TripAdvisor still has the Heifer Museum listed, which sounds fascinating but has sadly closed forever.) Is the Little Rock Zoo worth visiting in light of the things I like in zoos? (Or while I know this is not strictly on topic is there anything else that is a hidden gem in the Little Rock area besides Garvan Woodland Gardens?)
5. The alternative if I did the trip in six days is breaking up that last stretch between St. Louis and Houston into three parts. The only obvious way I see to do that without adding too much time is going through Springfield, MO. Springfield has a few things other than zoos that are potentially appealing, but it also has the Johnny Morris Wonders Of Wildlife National Museum & Aquarium, and the Dickerson Park Zoo. From the description it seems like their aquarium might be more interesting. Are either of these worth making a 2 to 3 hour detour for and which one is more interesting in light of the things I mentioned liking?
6. If I were to break St. Louis to Houston leg into three parts, is there anything especially worth seeing between Springfield, MO and Houston? Right now my tentative plan if I do that is to get a hotel in Texarkana and then see the forestry museum in Lufkin, but if Springfield is worth visiting I welcome any plans that would beat that. I know that there is the Ellen Trout Zoo, also in Lufkin however based on the website it doesn't look like it would have all that much I would find especially interesting, although I could be wrong because I haven't been.
I also welcome any other advice on things I might not have thought of in regards to this trip.
My plan is to see at least attraction in the morning and then drive 4 to 6 hours every day until I get back to Houston where I now live. Not everything I am going to see is a zoo or potentially going to see but zoos, aquariums, and botanical gardens are kind of my default "I will do this if there is nothing more compelling" plus the Cincinnati zoo and Pittsburgh Aviary are two of the three things that I am definitely going to see and part of the reason for the trip (the third is the St. Louis Botanical Garden). I might potentially see more than one attraction if it is convenient and if anything I am doing in the afternoon is indoors.
When it comes to zoos, my main interests are birds, species you don't see elsewhere often (for example the Scripps Institute of Oceanography had a lot of seahorse relatives that are not sea dragons or pipefish), and really interesting exhibit design. To give examples: I feel that the three best individual exhibit areas I have seen are the Brazos River Country at Cameron Park Zoo in Waco, which single-handedly makes an otherwise unremarkable zoo more than worth visiting and Wings of Asia aviary and the jungle loop section, both at Zoo Miami. I have been to fewer aquariums recently, but the single exhibit that most stood out to me was the Mississippi River exhibit at the Audubon Aquarium in New Orleans.
The route has to take me through Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, and St. Louis because of the things I want to see in those cities, but I am still trying to make a couple of other decisions about the route, as well as several decisions contingent on which route I take, for which I have I guess broadly six zoo-related questions:
1. To get to Pittsburgh in a reasonable time, the natural stopping point is Scranton (or Wilkes-Barre, but the attractions there seem kind of bare). In Scranton it seems like the top thing to do is Steamtown and the Trolley Museum next door, but I see that there is also the Electric City Aquarium and Reptile Den. This appears to be a small operation, and small zoos intrigue me because they do things differently. In my experience that usually translate to doing things a little bit worse in almost every way than the bigger AZA zoos, but sometimes they surprise me and when you have a combination of passionate management and interesting exhibit design I can find them more fun than anything an AZA zoo offers. So naturally, I am wondering: has anyone been here, and if so first of all is it worth visiting? And second of all is it more worth visiting than Steamtown and the Trolley Museum?
2. I have an acquaintance from Ohio who was trying to persuade me to do the Columbus Zoo instead of Cincinnati, but from everything I can tell Cincinnati is a much better zoo for birds, plus fact that it has keas and had both the last known the passenger pigeon and Carolina parakeet, which are also the reasons I wanted to visit it in the first place. However in looking into this I learned about the Newport Aquarium. This is the reason for adding the "maybe a second attraction as long as it's indoors and relatively close by" rule. However, I'm still not completely sure it's worth it with also going to the Cincinnati zoo and the longest stretch of driving ahead of me (unless I break it up, see point three). Obviously only I can decide if that's worthwhile, but in terms of worthwhileness compared to the Cincinnati Zoo, how worthwhile is it?
3. I can take up to six days to do this trip, although I could potentially do it in five. There are two places I could break it up. One option is to do it in the stretch between Cincinnati and St. Louis. This offers the opportunity to see attractions in Louisville, Indianapolis, and nearby areas and there are a lot of zoos. This includes a "bird park" north of Indianapolis that has no website and where pictures feature things like turkeys, so much as I love birds it doesn't seem compelling. There are also the Indianapolis, Miller Park, and Louisville Zoos. In terms of birds, unusual animals, and interesting exhibit, do any of those stand out enough to merit breaking up the trip here?
4. If I did the trip in five days or broke up the Cincinnati St. Louis leg, the ideal place to stop between St. Louis and Houston would be Little Rock, but I have already been to Garvan Woodland Gardens in the summer (I'd love to go back, but in the spring or fall), and it doesn't look like there is anything else that is particularly interesting to me, not even the zoo. (TripAdvisor still has the Heifer Museum listed, which sounds fascinating but has sadly closed forever.) Is the Little Rock Zoo worth visiting in light of the things I like in zoos? (Or while I know this is not strictly on topic is there anything else that is a hidden gem in the Little Rock area besides Garvan Woodland Gardens?)
5. The alternative if I did the trip in six days is breaking up that last stretch between St. Louis and Houston into three parts. The only obvious way I see to do that without adding too much time is going through Springfield, MO. Springfield has a few things other than zoos that are potentially appealing, but it also has the Johnny Morris Wonders Of Wildlife National Museum & Aquarium, and the Dickerson Park Zoo. From the description it seems like their aquarium might be more interesting. Are either of these worth making a 2 to 3 hour detour for and which one is more interesting in light of the things I mentioned liking?
6. If I were to break St. Louis to Houston leg into three parts, is there anything especially worth seeing between Springfield, MO and Houston? Right now my tentative plan if I do that is to get a hotel in Texarkana and then see the forestry museum in Lufkin, but if Springfield is worth visiting I welcome any plans that would beat that. I know that there is the Ellen Trout Zoo, also in Lufkin however based on the website it doesn't look like it would have all that much I would find especially interesting, although I could be wrong because I haven't been.
I also welcome any other advice on things I might not have thought of in regards to this trip.
