Creative License

Soooooo......today I went liberal artsy with pictures.  These are real photos that I took, but I altered them to match images from my childhood memories.  There is the realism and then there is that which clings to the dark edges of our minds.  Yes....some of them are scary, but I remember this bird in a book written from the 1950's at my Grandparents' house.  It was a collection of encyclopedias on a dusty shelf.  I was in love with dinosaurs but remember reaching a page with this bird on it.  It gave me nightmares from the eye color alone.  And it scared me so much that this particular encyclopedia would call my attention many times on visits that followed.

Then there were the peacock feathers in my parent's old house in Two Rivers.  My mother loved the feathers.  As kids, we loved tickling each others faces with the tips of them.

But they also scared me.  Why?  This picture captures the "eyes" that are watching me.  I enhanced the blue just to make my point. 

The design reminds me of the 1970's.  Talk about a decade of ugly fashion!!!  Bell bottom corduroys with butterfly collars.  Barf! 

Here is the photo unaltered.  The male really makes quite a statement in the wild with these feathers.

And here is the peacock again from behind.  The tail feathers vibrate so quickly that it doesn't look real. 

Victoria Crowned Pigeon

But this last photo is the one that haunts me.  Those encyclopedias were thrown out before I could get to them after my Grandparents died.  The book that had the weird New Guinea bird with the red eyes along with the scary dinosaurs might be gone, but that forgotten memory has be restored and recaptured once again. And I still stare at it with admiration, fear, sadness and nostalgia.

The Milwaukee Zoo

My nieces Chachee and Princess Morgana

Today's post is about family and the Milwaukee Zoo.  While this was quite the disaster in terms of planning for our 20 plus member family, we did learn several things.  In the immediate family, we are 8....Mom, Dad, 4 boys, 2 girls.  Each of us has a partner and 4 of the 6 siblings have lots of children which number in the thousands!  LOL!  I can't keep up with all the names.  Everytime I go home to visit, I meet new kids for the first time. On my next visit in December, I'll be seeing 2 new additions.  Christmas certainly has become a packed family affair at my parent's house.  In total, there are 10 nephews and nieces.  This family trip to Milwaukee was quite the workout.  We learned that in large families, like ours, a plan must be in place.  For example, it would have been helpful to break up into 3 teams.  It was interesting to watch everyone interact with each other.  I'm kind of a nomad and don't like to be stuck in big groups.  Actually my Mom is the same way.  So we stole my two nieces and did our own thing:)

While the girls had their makeup put on, I went around and snapped shots of the various things at the zoo.  Bring food if you want to cut down on the expenses.  Coolers are important and we stored them in the car for lunchtime.  It was quite the sandwich production.  There are picnic areas for you to use.

Also bring money.  There seemed to be lots of extra costs here and there.  The water show that you'll see below, the food stands, the dinosaur show, the painting artists, and the train ride are all examples of the little extras that pop up over the day. I didn't take a lot of shots on animals.  Why not?  They're caged and there's no sport in snapping a pic of something trapped.  I understand the importance of zoos, but there are times that they can also make me sad.  Nasty people eating bags of salty gross popcorn while tapping on glass or screaming at caged animals is not my idea of fun.  Now watching my family interact with all of this excitement was another story:)  There was a lot of irritation that day on everyone's part, but this family outing did succeed in modifying future Rohrer plans down the road.  As a family grows so do the ways a group functions:)

I did have fun and it's a great way to spend the day with the family and friends.  For more information, click here on the Milwaukee Zoo More tomorrow friends....