Stop and Smell the People

The Natural(ish) Bridge

Summertime means adventure time for Crowley, me and my boyfriend, Bob. (By the way Bob is the best boyfriend I ever had: quiet, strong, great looking and carries the baby everywhere. I’ll admit he is a stroller, even so…he’s still the best.) Anyway, as I learn about Crowley’s busy little brain and how it works…I can tell he likes to keep moving. New environments seem to light a fire under the little man’s development. So, since we are working on the words for animals, I thought, let’s go see them. So off we went to The Natural Bridge Zoo.

Crowley making friends

It’s about 35 miles north of Roanoke in Rockbridge County. Privately owned, the zoo has everything from zebras, bears, tigers, monkeys, giraffes to elephants (Crowley said ‘elephant’ for the first time). His favorite animals, by far, were the baby goats.

Crowley's goats at The Natural Bridge Zoo

If you have kids and are in the vicinity, should you go? Why not? It’s $8 for an adult, Crowley was free. Is this how I would spend my free time if not teaching a child how to talk? No.  This is a place with tremendous potential but they don’t put a lot of effort into the exhibits or even educating you about the animals. That said, I am glad we went and Crowley had an up close encounter with so many animals. Friendly to off-roading strollers like Bob. He’s so dependable.

After we toured the The Natural Bridge Zoo, we headed down to the The Natural Bridge.. which is an enormous rock formation, carved out by a river to form a… well… a natural bridge.  Also privately owned, you’ll have to fork over a whopping $18 per adult to see the thing. It is handicapped accessible which means they load you into a rickety bus (think camp from your childhoods) and head down a bumpy, curvy road… bouncing all the way. Not a great idea to wear a low cut top, especially if you are still nursing. There will be a wardrobe failure.

The happy (and sad) part is, they have paved the whole path up to and under the Natural Bridge. This makes it a breeze for Bob but the pavement takes the nature right out of natural. But it is an awesome site. Absolutely enormous. And cool.

Crowley, Anna and Bob... Natural Bridge in the background...

The tree canopy and water made this spot about 10 degrees cooler than the 97 degrees in Roanoke… which was a huge relief. And while this great natural wonder loomed over our heads, Crowley was more interested in talking an elderly lady out of her walker because that walker looked like a really good time!

Crowley eyes a walker and makes a play for it!

Farther down the path is a historic recreation of a Monacan Native American Village. The path trades in the pavement for gravel which with a little elbow grease, Bob still handled well.

Crowley feeling at home in the wigwam

My feelings about the Monacan village? How can you disparage the very place where your son falls in love with a wigwam. And yet, I am going to. Again, major failure on the education front. Who were the Monacans? Where are they now? What happened to them? Etc.? I still have no idea the answers to those questions. There was a tool maker present and some college students dressed as Native Americans. So, it was fun to watch Crowley run around and explore, but would this village excite and adult brain? Sorry. Probably not.

We stopped at a little cafe at the foot of The Natural Bridge. And while the view was beautiful, better to bring your own food. I have never had a hot dog bun that was both chewy and wrinkled… until now.

I know this isn’t a glowing review. The truth is we had a wonderful time. We blocked out the onslaught of tourist chachka for sale and focused on all the natural we could find, having a good laugh along the way. Time well spent, another adventure in our catalog.

Crowley, Bob and I are home until the next trip… Anna

Connecticut: Holy Cow!

Away in a manger, no ordinary cow!

Click here for some devine bovine.

The cow photo was taken by Aaron Flaum of the Norwich Bulletin.

NYC: Swim Lessons for Dogs

Yes. But only in New York City, right? These must be big city dogs!

Who cares! Dogs swimming in a pool is fun no matter. Click here for the swim gym for K9s.

BOO!

It’s the Holiday kids look forward to second only to Christmas! I liked it so much I trick-or-treated until I was 17. Just throw a sheet over your head and hunch over and voila, your 12. For your Halloween pleasure, here’s a photo of our baby boy Crowley and his friends all decked out in their costumes. Sweet. Indeed.

Crowley (on the far left) and his Halloween Posse - Landon, Carson, Reilly Jane and Charlie! Trick-or-Treat people, trick-or-treat. Photo Courtesy of Erica Bates

SAVE THE PUPPIES!

"Saved!"

We have a problem here in the south and we need to fix it. Pun intended. We don’t use the word execute. We the civilized say “euthanize.” Sounds so much nicer. But when you put a group of dogs in a gas chamber and gas them to death, what is that?

I need to warn you… the information in this story is disturbing. Animal lovers might want to turn away… but don’t. Take a long, hard look. Perhaps we’ll all get disgusted enough to act.

We have a dirty little secret in the Carolinas: North Carolina alone executed 218,000 dogs and cats last year. Most of them in gas chambers. Our tax dollars hard at work. We have a crisis on our hands and no one is talking about it.

Why? Good question. Too many dogs and not enough homes. Why?  Another good question. In the North there is no pet overpopulation problem like the South… for a couple reasons. For one, dogs and cats abandoned or born feral up North are far less likely to survive the winters. Here they survive and thrive and breed. But the mild winters are only a small portion of our animal over-population problem. Experts know the real cause is culture. In the North people get their pets spay and neutered. In the South, we don’t. Why? We don’t educate ourselves… and we ignore the problem.

You’ll find the proof that there is no over-population up North inside Jon Wehrenberg’s small airplane. On a flight from Spartanburg, SC to Jamestown, NY he carries four frightened, shivering pups rescued from doggy death row in the Carolinas. Waiting for them in Jamestown are shelter workers who will have no trouble adopting them out. In the South these four dogs came from shelters teeming with unwanted pets.

Shelter workers like Tracy Morgan work all day with a broken heart. In our interview she sat with a small brown puppy in her lap. When asked what his chances of survival were, she took a deep breath and softly said, “He’s not going to make it… sometimes they get adopted and sometimes they don’t.” Tracy knows that shelters only have to keep these animals for 72 hours before euthanizing them. Tracy Morgan and so many other shelter workers got into the business because they love animals. Now, because of state law and our “culture” they have to turn their heads and bite their lips as dogs are gassed to death on a daily basis.

There is a thin silver lining around this ominous darkness. It’s in the skies right now in the form of Pilot Jon Wehrenberg and 600 of his pilot friends. They are performing a K-Nine airlift… transferring thousands of unwanted southern dogs to the North. Animal lover Debi Boies and Jon Wehrenberg co-founded “Pilots N Paws,” a non-profit group rescuing dogs.

Debi and others helping her non-profit simply got fed up one day and could no longer turn away. Debi recruited Jon and slowly word started spreading. I first met Debi in November 2008 after seeing an article in a Tennessee newspaper. We shot a “Carolina Traveler” story with her, Jon and Tracy at that point. When NBC Nightly News heard about it they used our video to tell this story to the whole nation. That week 150

"K-9 Airlift"

more pilots joined the cause and hundreds of non-pilots called Debi to donate money. Her website saw a threefold increase in user-members.

Next month Debi and Jon and the gang have planned an ambitious event: they want to rescue and fly 5000 animals from September 12^th to the 20^th.

That’s a huge number… until you compare it to the 218,000 pest being executed ever year in North Carolina. But it’s 5000 more than were saved last month. And that’s the part on which Debi, Jon and Tracy keep their eyes focused.

To learn more about “Pilots N Paws” and perhaps become part of the solution here are some links: Pilots N Paws.org,  Pilots N Paws on the Carolina Traveler, and this week’s USA Today article.

To learn more about spay and neutering pets click this link. It’s a link for the Charlotte, NC Humane Society where you can get some needed info.  And no matter where you live there are Humane Societies to help you. All you have to do is type “humane society” and whatever the town nearest you is and voila! And here is a link to help you find a path to a less expensive “fix.” Take what you learn and talk to your friends about getting their pets fixed. Experts tell me (repeatedly) if we had our pets spay or neutered we could turn the problem around. And it’s not going away until we decide to fix it. And every solution always starts with one person.

Be that one person today… MR