Rochester, NY- Friday, August 16, 2024

      Continuing our series of short trips this summer, we're in Rochester this time.  Earlier in the year, we were planning on going to Disney World this very week.  We changed our plans when we started to see how Abby doesn't seem to do well in the heat.  It's no doubt a good thing that we changed those plans and postponed them to February, but we're still cognizant that in some parallel universe we were at the Magic Kingdom.  Last night, we went out to the Hofbräuhaus in Buffalo with Julie's brother John.  He had never been there and had wanted to go with us for a while.  That was fun (but not as much fun as it would have been in Epcot).

     This morning, we got up and dropped off Julie and Abby at the train station in Depew.  They had tickets to ride Amtrak to Rochester, just for the fun of it.  They had a great time.  They had a middle seat.  Abby enjoyed riding.  She was nervous to get on it at first, but once the train started moving and she saw how smooth it was, she started to enjoy the experience.  They had brought some snacks and watched for animals, but only saw cornfields.   It didn't feel like they were going very fast, but in about 45 minutes they were in Rochester.

     Meanwhile, Scott drove the car and met them at the station in Rochester.  From there, the three of us went to the Seneca Park Zoo.  Seneca Park is a long narrow park that runs along the top of the gorge made by the Genesee River.  Similarly, the zoo is laid out linearly.  When we used our Buffalo Zoo membership to get a reduced admission, the guy selling tickets recommended that we buy one-way tram tickets to ride back after we had walked the length of the zoo, which we did.

      The zoo itself was very nice.  We started by watching turtles and an otter swimming around.  While the zoo is small, they've certainly done some nice things with their exhibits.   The otter, for example has two places that it can be viewed from, and both have glass at kids-height.  The otter exhibit at the Buffalo Zoo, by comparison, is not very kid friendly.  But Abby's favorite part of the whole zoo was probably what she called the "turtle water."   It is a fountain area but it's made to look like a creek flowing through the rocks.  Many children were cooling their feet in it and watching leaves float down the water.  Abby played with some "new friends" there for a while and could have spent the whole afternoon there if we let her.   We grabbed some lunch nearby, and after letting Abby play in the turtle water" some more, we continued through the zoo.

     Abby tried calling to the sea lions using sounds that she thought they made, but they didn't pay much attention to her.   Towards the far end of the zoo is a nicely themed African area with a savannah area beyond that.  The African area has lions and baboons.  It was fun seeing African elephants again, since Buffalo doesn't have room to have them any more.  There were three of them taking turns reaching up with their trunks to pull down some hay that had been suspended over their heads.  The last animals were the giraffes and zebras, which share a big enclosure, with at least one baby giraffe amongst them.  We sat by them for a while.  Julie had bought Abby some Dippin' Dots to help cool her down, and because we had to finish them, we let the first tram leave without us.  When it circled back again, the tram's crew had their lunch break, so we had to continue to wait.  We fed some goldfish crackers to some finches that were flying near us.  Eventually, we did get the tram back, and it was a pleasant ride, through the woods that line Seneca Park and with occasional views down into the Genesee's gorge.

     It was early afternoon and we tried to check into the hotel, but were told that the room wasn't ready yet.  We looked for a Starbucks to pass the time, and eventually found one in a nearby Target.  We sat for a short time there and got some pop and snacks for tonight, then went back to the hotel.  We cooled off in the room and then, of course, Abby wanted to spend some time in the pool.  That was always the plan anyway, and why we picked this hotel.   We didn't want to go out for dinner and were looking forward to having pizza delivered, but Julie ended up having to drive a short distance to Papa John's to pick it up.  We were all pretty spent from the day and lounged in the room for the rest of the night.