On Friday, September 11, 2020 at 7:25:51 PM UTC-4, Dave Althoff, Jr. wrote:

Trip Report: Columbus Zoo and Aquarium
Powell, Ohio - 08/02/2020
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"This new PPE is useful in more ways than one!"

It's against my very nature to get through a weekend in the Summer without actually going somewhere and (preferably) riding a roller coaster. Unfortunately, thanks to a combination of You Know What and the varying responses to same, my choices have been terribly limited this season. First there are all the parks that never opened, then of the parks that opened late, many of them, either due to local regulations (as in Pennsylvania) or due to questionable company policies (at both Cedar Point and Kings Island) have 'face covering at all times' policies in place that make it
essentially impossible for me to visit this year [Footnote 1]. I'm hoping that the parks in question are reevaluating those policies as I think they may be hurting the parks even more than they are hurting me. So my choices have been limited and far-flung this year.

One valid option isn't really all that far flung. The Columbus Zoo is about 20 minutes away, and is home to one of two roller coasters in the Columbus metro area (the other is at Scene 75, an indoor FEC I am not too keen to revisit just yet). Due to You Know What, they require advance, timed reservations so that everyone doesn't arrive at once. But by the time I decided to go, it was late enough in the day that I could go there for the discounted "after 2pm" offer that does not require a reservation. From experience I know that the animals are likely to be mostly asleep by that time, but that's fine when what I really want to do is spend some quality time with the rides. I bought my ticket and headed out for a solo trip.

Upon arrival, I started by cursing the layout of the enormous parking lot. It's really designed to park a lot of people all at once, then get them out quickly. It's not designed to allow people arriving after the initial rush
to find the scattered empty spaces. It's only slightly better than the dead-end rows of Holiday World's Raven parking lot. After a lot of driving,
a few too-close encounters with other drivers, and a lot of four-letter words, I parked the car, noted the overcast sky and grabbed the appropriate PPE, and made my way to the gate. Unlike Indiana Beach, Kentucky Kingdom,
and as I now understand it Holiday World, face coverings are not required
to enter the Zoo, but there are ample warnings noting that they are
required in the indoor spaces. I immediately veered to the left towards the amusement ride section. I'm not sure if they are still calling this Jungle Jack's Landing, or if it's all now Adventure Cove, or if Adventure Cove is merely the name for the new sea lion exhibit. It's not entirely clear at
the moment. A stop at a booth across from the sea lions and a quick transaction yielded a wristband good for all the rides at the Zoo. I noted that I paid more for the wristband than I had paid for my Zoo admission.

My first stop was Mission Macaw, the Larson Flying Scooter ride which,
since my last visit, has received colorful new decals to decorate the sails and tails. What it has not received is a new set of seat belt buckles
without the finger-resistant covers. I would think that in the interest of maintaining social distancing most parks would want to switch this ride to
a more conventional seat belt buckle. Combine that with the process of
wiping down all of the seats after each ride, and the total cycle time is pretty outrageous. Has it not been shown that fomic transfer is not considered a significant infection vector for COVID-19, and all this extra disinfection is little more than an expensive, time consuming waste of effort? Still, it's hard to fault the Zoo for trying to do the best they
can, especially given that the place is operated by the City of Columbus. Anyway, the ride is one of the better examples of the Larson version of
this classic ride, with a somewhat generous ride cycle and an operations
team that doesn't get scared at some minor aerobatics and a little tub-thumping [Footnote 2]. I'd have loved to ride a few more times but my time was limited, the operations were dead slow, and I really wanted to get on the coaster...

And so that is precisely what I did. Once again, it is the oldest wooden roller coaster in the State of Ohio, the Sea Dragon. The crowd here was light, and I was able to take several rides in quick succession even though the park was only using the front seats of the train. This denied me a back-seat ride, which is unfortunate because there is noticeably more foot and leg room in the back seats than in the front seats of the PTC junior train. It also didn't really make sense; after all, if it's a good idea to keep one empty row between riders, wouldn't it be even better to have two empty rows? To the operator's credit, when she noticed that the same people were riding repeatedly, she asked us to take our same seats on successive rides, that way she didn't have to wipe down the seats for us. Before long,
I had taken enough rides to justify buying the ride wristband.

I didn't want to spend the whole afternoon on the coaster, though; in fact
I wanted to see how things were in the rest of the Zoo. To that end, my
first stop was the new facility across from Mission Macaw. It's a large building that has been under construction for the last two years or more,
and it is finally open. It turns out that most of it is a very large pool which serves as the living quarters for a group of very noisy sea lions. While there is a viewing deck at the edge of the pool, there was also a
line forming to enter the building beneath the pool deck. Since it wasn't actually raining, this was the first place where that bit of PPE I brought
in actually came in handy. It's a dome-shaped shield covered with a nylon fabric, but the dome is collapsible, so that the entire assembly forms a
rod almost four feet long, with a handle at one end and a spike at the
other. By dragging it behind me while waiting in line, I was able to remind others to stand back a bit. Crowding won't get us in there any faster, and standing farther apart will actually make the line move faster. A few
minutes later I arrived at the sliding glass door, paused briefly to attach my State-mandated face cloth, and learned what all the fuss was about.

I took a few steps inside and found myself in a rectangular acrylic tunnel that runs through the sea lion pool. This was an interesting and
fascinating look at sea lions, as my previous exposure to them had been at marine life shows, where they would come up on stage and introduce themselves, awkwardly show off a couple of tricks, then dive back into the water. From underwater I got to see them in an obviously more comfortable habitat, swimming rapidly and clearly interacting with the people standing
in this big plastic tube. The tube is suspended in the pool in such a way that the sea lions can swim past, over, under, and around the tube, making for spectacular underwater viewing. I might have stayed a few minutes
longer, but I was starting to become extremely uncomfortable, needed to get the cloth off right away quick, and that meant getting outside in a very
big hurry. I don't wish this on anyone, except possibly my elected
officials.

Across from the sea lion building, though, I saw something I had not seen
in four and a half months. There is a rest room building there, and between the rest room doors is a water fountain. Not expecting much, I elbowed the button on the front and...water came out of the spout! I leaned over and
took a long drink just out of principle. I have not seen an operating water fountain in any public place since all this pandemic stuff started!

It was late in the day, and I wanted to at least visit the other rides in
the Zoo. I started by taking the hike around the lake, through the tunnel under Riverside Drive, and to the West side of the Zoo, what until recently was the larger section. I skipped the aquarium this time around, but I did stop at the carousel. The machine is an antique Mangels machine, possibly with Ilions horses, an all-jumping 'portable' machine. Unfortunately as
part of the restoration that was done when the carousel was moved from Wyandot Lake, the Mangels sliding horse mechanism (which allowed the horses to swing out at an angle as the ride picked up speed) was replaced with a more typical shotgun assembly. I was delighted to hear that the band organ was actually operating (it seems to only operate limited hours), and I
opted to take a ride. While the carousel pavilion is an open-air structure, signs suggest that it is considered an 'indoor'space, so out came the cloth again. After an interminable wait for the ride to empty, then for all the horses to be wiped down, then finally to load, I was beginning to wonder if it was worth the effort by the time the ride started. By the time the ride ended, I'd had enough. Mr. Lizard Brain was not behaving himself today. I
was shaking hard enough I wasn't sure I could safely dismount the horse. I muttered a few unbroadcastable epithets directed at my elected leaders and their apparent fetishes, unclipped the cloth and stuffed it back in my pocket. Why can I handle half an hour in the grocery store but not ten minutes in a carousel pavilion? And unless their policies change, it's
clear that Cedar Point and Kings Island are still out of the question this season.

I proceeded back to one of the most interesting scenic spots in the Zoo, a location about as far as you can get from the Riverside Drive tunnel, a
deck overlooking the Scioto River. What's particularly interesting about
this location is that while you can see the expensive homes lining the
river, and look at the Glick Rd. bridge, that bridge is built over the O'Shaughnessy Dam. The Zoo is positioned on the O'Shaughnessy Reservoir (really just a wide spot in the Scioto River behind the dam). The dam lacks
a superstructure, so the view from the upstream side is a little odd: the river just disappears under the bridge in a sudden horizon where it flows over the dam. Anyway, I was down here because there is a strange little Hopkins river rapids ride at the end of the path. The ride is classified as
a rapids ride, but there are no rapids, and the lift is only a couple of feet, handled by the loading conveyors in the station. The ride runs oblong boats, eight or ten passengers each, although thanks to You Know What I
would be riding alone. In the past few years the boat ride has run past a collection of animated dinosaurs, but apparently their lease has ended here just as it has at most of the other places where they have operated. So no dinosaurs today, just a scenic boat ride through and past the living
quarters of the Orangutan, Gibbon and Otters, most of whom were sleeping at this late hour.

Closing time was approaching rapidly. I returned to the crossroads behind
the entry plaza and considered whether I had time to climb the hill
(unaided by the tram shuttle due to You Know What) to the North American section for a ride on the train or not. I checked my watch and decided to
go for it. It's quite a hike up the hill, but I arrived at the train
station shortly after the train left. It's not a long ride, so for me it
was a short wait, and it started to look like I would have the train all to myself once it returned. A few more people joined me, and before long we
had a respectable load for what would probably be the last ride of the day. The train is a late model Chance CP Huntington, although I think this particular one is one of the larger versions, almost big enough to seat two adults per seat. The ride circles the older portion of the North American section of the park, and past the lynx, moose, black bear and puma, and within shouting distance of the prairie dogs. After a quick trip around, it was almost time to go home. I walked the wrong way up the midway so that I could cross over to the Polar Frontier and see if the polar bears were out (they were not) before making the long hike back down to the entrance, and the even longer hike back out to my car.

Next: Indiana Beach 08/16/2020

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

Footnote 1: The part of my brain tasked with keeping me alive, what I have come to refer to as my "lizard brain" positively freaks out and makes for a really unpleasant experience. I haven't figured out why.

Footnote 2: "I stall it down, then it jerks up again
As the center drags me round and round
It drops right down, then I fly up again
And I'm scaring all the kids in line
I snap it down, I snap it up again
It bounces for me every time
I fly it down, then I fly up again
There's more to this than round and round"

--DCAjr
/X\ _ *** Respect rides. They do not respect you. ***
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Does the coaster operate weekdays in summer (July)? I see varying reports of yes and no.... trying to plan a possible visit during a visit to the area.

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