ADVENTURES

THE PIG ON A PLANE AND OTHER TALES

Our last chapter of Texas led us to Dallas, where construction was a mighty force. From our motel near the airport, we could see several cranes.

We had one free day left, so we chose to explore the Dallas zoo. How pleased we were to find it was a lovely zoo, thoughtfully set up and with huge enclosures for the animals. As it was spread out over 106 acres, they dealt with the challenge that a busy thoroughfare went through the zoo grounds. Cleverly, they simply ran a tunnel for patrons to walk through under the road, and lined the tunnel with gorgeous murals.

The savannah exhibit was marvelous and wound it's way over a wide, long, winding path and contained giraffes, ostriches, zebras and a variety of antelopes. It was usually the home of elephants as well, but as the gate to let the great beasts out was having issues, we saw no elephants that day.
What we did view was the fact that zebras can be ornery beasties: we watched one take a dislike to a certain male ostrich. The zebra chased the huge bird about, eventually even biting the ostrich.

The gorilla exhibits were amazing as well; one enclosure had a papa gorilla with his harem, the other had the 4 bachelor gorillas that live together in more or less harmony. These guys were all 15 years old and big. I mean, they were giant, humongous, massive, enormous, immense!

My Beloved made a new friend in the aviary:

and while we did not see any live elephants, they did have a nice fountain sculpture of the beasts.

As this was a Wednesday, our fellow zoo-goers were mainly mothers with young children, and school field trips with packs of energetic youngsters. It was a very enjoyable day.
So, back to the airport, where we noted that many people had service dogs. Tis 'the thing' these days.... and I'm going to get myself in hot water here, as I strongly feel there is a difference between service dogs, who can sense warnings for epileptics and diabetics, and help those who have physical limitations.... and 'comfort animals' who now seem to fall into the classification as 'service', simply as they help their owners 'feel better'.
You can imagine my shock when we boarded our plane to find there was a 'comfort pig' boarded as well.
This pink, grunting creature had it's own seat, next to it's owners: a young couple.
Most folks found this greatly amusing; I overheard the stewardess say that a few weeks back, they had a miniature horse on board as a comfort animal.
The pig behaved civilly (as did I), and I wondered where the line was: the pig provided comfort to it's owner, but I am not over-fond of pigs.
We sat at the other end of the plane, occasionally hearing grunts and snorts. As I am also not keen on flying, it was a good distraction.
It was so good to get home again.....

Chocolate And Chickens

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