What happens is not as important as how you react to what happens.

Yeah, that’s right. For all you photo mongers out there, it’s another photo fest! OK, so this isn't necessarily Easter oriented, but consider it my Easter treat for all my Mindsay pals...it certainly was a treat for ME!


I bought a 1 GB Memory Stick for my Sony last week and it was none too soon for my first trip to Riverbanks Zoo in Columbia! (No, I STILL don’t have the new camera that I ordered over a MONTH ago…more on that later…) I spent the first day of my vacation with my friend, Marie. We drove to Columbia to drop off Easter baskets for her daughter and her fiancé, then took off to Riverbanks Zoo and spent the rest of the day there. I took almost 500 pictures! By the time I’d downloaded them to my computer and sorted through them, I had 400 left that I felt worth keeping – probably less than half that was really good and/or worth tweaking in Photoshop, and even fewer that were OK as is, without some SERIOUS Photoshop tweaks. But needless to say, even that was too many for one post! So, I got this grand idea of posting a picture of the day each day! At least until I run out of pictures (which I assure you would be NEVER) or until I take a notion to go off in some other direction.

 As long as I’ve lived in SC, I’ve NEVER been to Riverbanks Zoo, so needless to say, being the critter freak that I am, I was in hawg heaven! And I went absolutely BONKERS in the aquarium…I think I could’ve spent HOURS in that ALONE!

Today’s feature will be your standard zoo fare…the lions and tigers (who wouldn’t come out to play) and bears, and that sort of thing. Tomorrow I’ll post birds and Monday I’ll post the aquarium highlights.

What zoo doesn’t have at least one elephant? This one has a family…mom, dad and baby.


And of course the token lion…


…and gator


and a grizzly that was completely bored with the whole thing.


I confess, I thought all zebra were black and white, but these had very dark brown stripes instead.


There was a family of giraffe


and an exotic squirrel.


I wouldn’t be surprised if this turtle weighed as much as one of my horses! He was HUGE!


I would’ve LOVED to have known the topic of THIS seemingly serious conversation…


This sea lion is too sexy for his rock.


And this wart hog HAS to be the absolute UGLIEST critter I’ve ever seen.


There were cute little meerkats…


and elegant flamingos.


But the BIGGEST surprise was who we met just outside the gate as we were leaving...it’s a Columbian NUTKIN!