On Friday, we needed a quickie adventure, so we went to the Bear Mountain zoo. I’m not a huge zoo person. Pacing animals don’t do much for me. But the Bear Mountain is a different.

The zoo with its small buildings for fish and rocks were WPA projects from the thirties. Here you can see my son clowning in front of amphibian building. Check out the massive boulders that we rolled into place by men grateful for work during the Great Depression. The rock and timber look is so amazingly American.

The Bear Mountain zoo features all sorts of anxious notes that pop up from the path to examine the red oak and the white maple. Note the different sounds of the bull frog and the toad. Compare the leaves of the sugar maple and the whatever maple. Some over caffeinated zoo director from yesteryear went a little crazy with the signs.

There are several structures within the zoo where you can learn about local geology and see fragments of a mammoth skull. I’m a sucker for old fashioned natural history displays. I love the pictures of the noble savages, the hopeful faces of blond Americans gazing towards the future, the always triumphant note of modernity and progress. I also love the boxy type fonts.