Tunes, Blooms, and a Baby Camel

So what do tunes, blooms, and a baby camel have in common? They were all at the Cincinnati Zoo this past month! Every spring the Cincinnati Zoo explodes with color from hundreds of thousands of tulips, daffodils, and hyacinths. They boost a count of 100,000 tulips alone. It was absolutely beautiful. And to make it even better, every Thursday in April they invite a few local bands in to play and open the park up at no charge (parking is still $9). They call it “Tunes and Blooms”… what a fabulous idea!

I met a few friends, listened to a few songs, drank a few beers, and then went in search of the animals. Many of the exhibits were closed in the evenings but there were still plenty to see. 

The baby camel was adorable. Funny thing about those humps on his back, you would think they were fairly solid, but they weren’t; they wiggled when he walked. Weird, huh? I mean they were really wiggly, flopping all over the place! Maybe when camels age their humps harden up, or maybe I’ve just never seen a camel walk around. It’s possible that all of my past encounters with camels have been with them standing still in their enclosure.

They had three bands the night I went. By far, the best was Green Light Morning. They are a local group, still very new, but I think they can go places. They are kind of alternative pop/rock, maybe a little southern rock, maybe a little folk. They were very enjoyable to watch and as you can image, the show they put on was really family-friendly, it was the zoo, after all. There were kids up front dancing and doing the hoola-hoop, lots of clapping and crowd participation. I suppose the shows they put on for night clubs or predominately adult audiences are a little different. Anyway, I liked them, check them out here.

And of course, no zoo visit would be complete without running into one of the resident, free-roaming peacocks on the property. Yep, they just strut their stuff in and among the patrons and strike poses anywhere they please.