Vacation Adventures

Sweetie and the children were extremely impressed by the Alabama Gulf Coast Zoo. It has been featured on the Discovery Channel as "The Little Zoo That Could."

Their stories of survival after hurricanes, especially Ivan and Katrina, are amazing. Zookeepers even went so far as taking animals home with them to make sure everyone was properly cared for.

The zoo is small, but getting bigger. More land, safer and higher and a bit further from the shore, has been donated, and they are building and moving.

It seems like it wouldn't take long to cover the place, but by the time you experience the "outback encounter" area with the down under critters, pet the tons of animals available to touch and interact with, and pay to pet the wolf cubs and tiger cubs (yes, really), you have spent all of the morning or a good portion of the afternoon.

A part of a day at the zoo has now been added to our list of "must-do" things on vacation each year.


Today is

64th Annual Rhododendron Festival, Roan Mountain State Park, Tennessee -- through tomorrow

Artigas Day, Uruguay (national hero)

Festival of the Coming Ice Age

Garfield the Cat Day (his birthday)

Independence Day, Kuwait, Laos

Juneteenth

Labor Day, Trinidad and Tobago

National Hollerin' Contest Day -

National Martini Day

New Church Day -- Swedenborgian Christian

Shrimp Festival, Belgium

St. Boniface of Querfurt's Day

St. Jude's Day

St. Romuald's Day

Woodchoppers Jamboree and Rodeo, Saratoga, Wyoming (through tomorrow, always held Father's Day Weekend)

World Juggler's Day

World Sauntering Day


Birthdays Today:

Zoe Saldana, 1978
Mia Sara, 1967
Paula Abdul, 1962
Kathleen Turner, 1954
Phylicia Rashad, 1948
Salman Rushkie, 1947
Elaine "Spanky" McFarlane, 1942
Gena Rowlands, 1930
Louis Jourdan, 1919
Pauline Kael, 1919
Pat Buttram, 1915
Lou Gehrig, 1903
Guy Lombardo, 1902
Moe Howard, 1897
Wallis Simpson, 1896
Charles H. Spurgeon, 1834
Blaise Paschal, 1623


Today in History:

King Louis IX of France orders all Jews found in public without an identifying yellow badge to be fined ten livres of silver, 1269
The Earl of Pembroke's army defeats Bruce's Scottish army at the Battle of Methven, 1306
English colonists leave Roanoke Island, N.C., after failing to establish England's first permanent settlement in America, 1586
Emanuel Swedenborg reports the completion of the Second Coming of Christ in his work True Christian Religion, 1770
Battle of Seven Oaks between North West Company and Hudson's Bay Company, near Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, 1816
The first officially recorded, organized baseball match was played under Alexander Joy Cartwright's rules on Hoboken's Elysian Fields (Hoboken, New Jersey)with the New York Base Ball Club defeating the Knickerbockers 23-1; Cartwright umpired, 1846
Over two years after the Emancipation Proclamation, slaves in Galveston, Texas, United States, are finally informed of their freedom; the anniversary is still officially celebrated in Texas and 35 other states as Juneteenth, 1865
Maximilian I of the Mexican Empire is executed by a firing squad in Querétaro, Querétaro, 1867
After all of the Southern States are formally readmitted to the United States, the Confederate States of America ceases to exist, 1870
The Herzegovinian rebellion against the Ottoman Empire begins, 1875
The first Father's Day is celebrated in Spokane, Washington, 1910
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg are executed at Sing Sing, in New York, 1953
Kuwait declares independence from the United Kingdom, 1961
In one of the first militant attacks by Hezbollah, David S. Dodge, president of the American University in Beirut, is kidnapped, 1982