Cincinnati

We decided to spend a few more nights in Cincinnati the first reason being I wanted to go to the zoo and the second one being that for Friday night the campground in Lexington that we are going to, The Kentucky Horse Park, was entirely full. As is this campground except for the lone spot by the playground that we were forced to move to. It is a real issue this time of year in finding a campground on Friday and Saturday nights. Almost all of them that we have run into so far have been full or very nearly so. The park we have been at here, Winton Woods, is a county park run by Hamilton County. It is nice but most of the sites are right on top of each other and all the full hookup sites are in a treeless area.

http://www.greatparks.org/parks/wintonwoods.htm


http://www.cincinnatizoo.org/


On Thursday we went to the zoo as it looked like it would be the "coolest" of the two days that we would be here. The Cincinnati Zoo is rated in the top 5 zoos in the country and we were surprised to find out it is in the downtown area. I guess that can be good and bad as it offers easier access to people but we wonder how they will ever be able to expand in the future.


Although all the animals were neat to see we really enjoyed the seeing the red panda from Asia, an endangered cousin of the giant panda. There were a pair of Mallard ducks in their enclosure and one of the pair was very intent on chasing them, we are not sure if they were to be lunch or not!


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Panda

The other exhibit which was very interesting was that of the Sumatran rhinos. The zoo is the only spot in the country where they can be found today and there are only 300 of them left in the wild. In 2001 one of the females gave birth to a male calf which was the first successful birth in captivity in 112 years.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumatran_Rhinoceros

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cincinnati_chili

Alth0ugh we were not aware of it previously, Cincinnati considers itself the chili capital of the world with over 180 chili restaurants. We decided to pick up a Skyline chili shop thinking it would be somewhat like the chili we are used to --- wrong! Cincinnati chili uses different spices such as cinnamon and allspice and is of very thin consistency. They serve it on hot dogs which I find normal but they also serve it over spaghetti noodles. When you have just spaghetti noodles, chili and gobs, and I mean gobs, of cheese it is called 3 way. When you add either beans or onions it is called 4 way. To be kind we will say that the only thing Bill liked about the chili was the loads of shredded cheese -- he always complains about the lack of cheese on food at places such as Taco Bell. the only thing I liked was the spaghetti, extra onions and cheese. I am not sure if this type of chili is an acquired taste but I don't think we will be taking the time to acquire said taste! As in most situations such as this we always say "Thank God it was a shop and we are reiumbursed!"

On a more frustrating note Dozey had two seizures again early Friday morning around 5am and again around noon. He had not had any since we had him on the 1 tablet of phenobarbital every 12 hours. These two were relatively short compared with the seizures he had had before being on the medication though. I called the vet in Hammond who wasn't in Friday morning but the partner vet said to start giving him 1 1/2 tablets every 12 hours. Although modern science is stating that full moons do not cause an increase in seizures, I find it very strange that Thursday was a full moon and all of a sudden Dozey has one. We will be tracking this next month and see if the same thing occurs although it may not with him being on a higher dosage.

Bill said that Thursday night Doze was acting strange and trying to get into the front seats of the rig like he used to do. He was pacing and panting heavily although the A/C was on. We asked the vet if that happens again if we can go ahead and give him another tablet and she said we could. Here is some info on dogs being able to predict seizures in people so why could they not know it was coming in themselves?

http://animals.howstuffworks.com/pets/dog-predict-seizure.htm

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/full_moon_040526.html