The Wilds Day 2 - Riding the Rhino

I was up at my normal too-early time and tried to sleep a bit more, but it wasn't going to happen.  I'm not sure how SO puts up with me because I had to get up and make coffee.  Ah ... the yurt life.
As it got light we packed up our stuff.  We were hoping for a late checkout, but that wasn't possible so we had to find a way to get all of our motorcycle crap secured on the bike while we went on the tour.  This was made easier by the weather since it was between cool and cold - so I ended up wearing my motorcycle jeans instead of shorts.
We had even more down time after a good breakfast waiting for "The Wildside" tour.  The Wilds has many tours available, this one takes place in an open air truck with up to eight people.  The trucks will also go off-road to see the animals where as the bus tours stay on the road (and they're on a bus).
Our tour only had four people on it, which was something we all seemed happy about.  Eight would have been OK, but we may have had to be closer than kin...  The other two women on the tour were very friendly and we got along well, making room for each other's pictures and sharing access to the nearby animals.  It was a little funny that they lived not too far from us either.  Apparently multiple full trucks are more common, so I'll take the day's situation as a plus.

Kristen was our tour guide and she started by giving us some background and a few warnings.  Nothing was too surprising, but it did include warnings on some animals being aggressive.  The plan was to find animals, get as close as reasonably possible, and spend some time in each spot.  Kristen would sit in the roof of the truck since there is a no-feet-on-the-ground rule on tours.

Off we went in search of animals.  First up were some wild horses with more warnings on biting.  The steering wheel had a chunk taken out of it on a previous tour - 'nuff said.

Then it was on to some camels.  Up close they don't look as regal as they do from far away with their big lips hanging out and gangly demeanor.  We were allowed to pet them and I was surprise how firm the hump was since they look so floppy.

The beginning felt slow since horses and camels don't exactly seem toooo exotic, but maybe that is by design since things got better as the morning went on.  Next up were the Sichuan Takin.  These are the bulbous things that I thought were pretty cool looking.  I guess these are a Chinese National Treasure and are all "owned" by China.  However, they are doing better outside of China than in.  Two of these guys were getting frisky - which must be OK since they need to use contraception to limit the breeding (this is true of many of the animals).

There are American Bison on the property, but they are actually not strictly part of the wilds.  Far from endangered, these are raised for meat.  Still, neat to see.

From there we went to the carnivore area which is surprisingly small.  For (perhaps obvious) reasons, the carnivores are kept separate and in extra double fencing.  The cheetahs are pretty magnificent animals.

We had extra time at the carnivore area which allowed us to look around on our own.  It is probably also to give poor Kristen a break from all the questions which she probably gets from all of the guests.  While I'm sure every tour is different, I have to suspect it also gets painfully redundant for the guides.

I've always thought African Spotted Dogs are one of the neatest looking canines.  Being so close to them was really cool.  Their coloring almost looks fake.

I want to take one of these home - but I bet they are hard to house train...

Some of the animals stay hidden and whether they are out might be temperature dependent.  Shortly before we left the carnivore area we did get to see some young Dholes.

Back in the truck we were on the hunt for more animals.  I have to say that the Pere Davids Deer look regal from far away, less so up close.  Their back story is pretty interesting though.

Another regal-looking animal which is prone to biting is the zebra.  From even a short distance away, the stripe pattern blends into a camouflage grey.

Kristen moved the truck as the Ostrich came close.  Their head was high enough relative to the truck that she didn't want them too close to us.

We had another stop at the Rhino barn where they keep their male one-horned Rhino.  At first he was in the barn but as if on cue, he came out when Kristen shook a small bucket of sweet potatoes.  We got to feed him ... and get Rhino slobber all over our hands.

Feeding was also on the agenda at our next stop - whether we wanted to or not.  The Giraffe WILL BE FED!  I guess it really likes romaine lettuce.

While the one giraffe was pretty aggressive in wanting food, we were also able to entice another smaller one to eat as well.  The strength of such a svelte animal was pretty amazing.

A short distance away we came to a group of animals that included two-horned Rhinos.

Wild Scimitars.

And Bactrian Deer (which were showing rutting behavior and vocalization).  These deer were massively impressive both in antlers and body size.  I wonder what they do with all the shed antlers?

The Rhinos liked to use the truck as a scratching post and it was surprisingly OK for us to pet and scratch them.  Their skin is like armor.

As we made our way back out, we saw some young Eland.

The tour was much more interactive than I would have thought.  Getting to feed the rhino; being up close to an obnoxious giraffe; seeing spotted dogs and watching a cheetah lie down right in front of me.  And that might be my only criticism of the entire thing.  Or maybe it is a criticism of myself, of all of us - while unscripted and infinitely more natural than a zoo, the animals have little fear of humans.  Still, it was much more honest than a Cade's Cove version of nature.  And to be pragmatic, this is probably the only way to keep some of these animals alive and reproducing on the planet.  I'm sure doing so is massively expensive, and having tourists come through makes this possible only due to the interaction.  I can appreciate that on many levels while at the same time being a bit uncomfortable with it. 

"When experiences are sold, when scenery becomes commodity, places can morph into caricatures of themselves, obscuring context and meaning." - Sarah Gilman

I'm glad that places like The Wilds exist while being a bit sad about it at the same time.  Our goal for the natural world shouldn't be animals that are so divorced from it that they resemble their former selves in form only.  We risk seeing nature as a giant terrarium, instead of the unscripted and sometimes ugly wilds that it should be.

Day 2:  202.6 Miles

It took a few minutes to reorganize everything for the trip home.  The day which started out cold had started to grow warm.  We had at least a short amount of time to enjoy the Eastern Ohio roads before we hit the interstate.  Then it was goal driven - time to go home.

Traffic wasn't too bad and there wasn't much construction - which was nice.  As we passed over the Lost Lands Musical Festival, it looked much worse than the previous day.  Uggg...  You guys can have it.

As the relatively short trip home continued, the combination of wind and atypical heat made it feel longer than it was.  When this whole thing was originally planned, the worry was more that any rain could make the bike trip uncomfortable; as it was, a bit of rain might have been nice.

Soon enough we were home.  We unpacked and got the dogs.  Even though they were only gone one night it will take a day or three for them to get back to normal.

For a short adventure, it certainly felt longer than it was.  The spotted dogs were a highlight as was the ability to be up close and personal with the rhinoceros.
I'm still overdue for another long road trip, but I'm glad I got to experience a bunch more interesting Ohio for a few days.

The Wilds Day 1 - Historivia and a Yurt With Plumbing

I've already kvetched about the spring and summer of Day-In Day-Out, so I won't go over that again.
SO has gone on her Alaska trip.  I'm recently returned from my Bear Hunting Adventure.  Things are mostly caught up at work and at home.  A break may not be needed, but there is still vacation to burn and doing it now makes much more sense than sitting around pondering life's failures in December.
I usually average between 10,000 and 15,000 miles on my motorcycles per year.  The last couple years have been disappointing.  I'm overdue for a long road trip - this will not be it.  But after touring all over North America, we've spent surprisingly little time in the adopted home state of Ohio.

Day 1:  268.0 Miles

After a normal Wednesday, we had an abnormally light packing job for a single motorcycle overnight.  SO took the dogs to beagle jail in the morning, a few things were tidied up.  And we were off.  Temperatures were almost perfect in the mid-60s with mostly sunny skies.
We got through the tail end of greater Cincinnati traffic, before heading north and east.  I-71 wasn't too bad once a ways away.  We worked our way around Columbus before heading due east.
I was tired on being on the interstate, so I got off on Ohio-13.  This was a poor choice since the Lost Lands Music Festival was happening right near this exit and things were horribly backed up.  And oh my goodness were those people jam packed in some of the most uncomfortable looking camping conditions that I've ever seen.
I jumped right back on the interstate, getting off a short time later - let Garmin do his duty.  Garmin is sometimes stupid, so this was a bit risky.
Getting off the interstate for the rest of the day was 100% the right choice as was letting Garmin route me stupidly.  The area of Ohio I went through had motorcycle roads that rival just about anywhere else I've been.  Hills, twists and turns.  Some technical sections, many blind hills and off-camber turns.  Many straight stretches with higher speed sweeper turns.  Subtract from that almost all traffic and it made for a great late morning through early afternoon.

Our first stop for the day was the Morgan County dungeon.
Morgan County was created and incorporated between 1817 and 1819.  A little over 10 years later, I guess they needed a spot to house their criminals - those convicted of theft, murder and who knows what else.  Criminal justice in early frontier America was somewhat subjective, political and prejudiced against the poor.  Which means it was pretty much like it is today.  Of course by today's standards, most would have been considered poor since they didn't have cable TV and motorcycles to ride around to see arbitrary places of Americana.
A dungeon was dug into the ground around 1833.  Having previously toured several jails that were from a similar time period, I can say with some authority that a jail and a dungeon are not the same thing.  A dungeon brings up images of a dank hole were people were thrown in perpetuity, which is pretty much what the Morgan County Dungeon is.  Although I have no idea how long people were in there, even a short amount of time would have been brutal.  The thought of being in something like this - with or without a trial - seems pretty heinous; possibly cruel and certainly unusual - at least by today's standards.
This dungeon was hidden from view, literally buried, until it was exposed while building the present jail and sheriff's office.  The idea of burying this in the past seems like an allegory to hiding our own past mistakes - it wasn't destroyed, just tucked away under the surface, probably hoping that nobody would ever find it.  Thankfully they chose not to use it when it was dug up, and it now sits as a reminder that history is judged not by how the most privileged are treated, but by how the worst off are.

Maybe it doesn't.  The Dungeon is actually a recreation in a totally different spot with some other historic things nearby - most notably a relocated one-room school.  I was disappointed it wasn't the actual dungeon, but I guess that explains the plate steel roof the structure has.  But it was still worth a stop and put us on some nice roads.

Next up was the Big Muskie Bucket.
The Big Muskie was the largest single-bucket digging machine and was in service between 1969 to 1991.  It held about 220 cubic yards - which is a lot.  Back of the envelope calculations suggest it could hold about 100 Gold Wings.

When I was buying gravel to turn my old driveway from mud to muddy gravel, I was buying about 2 Bobcat scoops at a time which is about 1 cubic yard.  If I would have had a Big Muskie, I wouldn't have beat up my F150 quite as much.  Of course the Big Muskie had limited ability to move - and only very slowly, so the comparison isn't all that relevant.
When first put into service the Big Muskie was the pride of the Central Ohio Coal Company.  With all the coal it mined, it is perhaps odd that it was powered by electricity.  Maybe there is a lesson there?  And maybe electric power is both the past and the future.  All hail Zero Motorcycles!
It stayed in service far longer than I would have thought.  But EPA regulation on how coal is used coupled with how mining can be done finally made the Big Muskie lose the race against being cost effective.  Coal is still used for energy in the US and is still mined in Ohio, but we pretend it is done in a much more friendly manner.  Frankly, I don't see how anything can be more friendly than something called Big Muskie.
We talked with some other people visiting the Big Muskie.  One man even had an uncle who worked in the mine with it.  Almost more impressive than the bucket itself, was the chain used to maneuver it.

Our final quick stop for the afternoon was the Thorla/McKee oil well.
Around the time Morgan County was being incorporated, early settlers Silas Thorla and Bob McKee noticed deer licking the ground in a particular spot.  They hoped this was due to a natural salt deposit since salt isn't terribly prevalent in Ohio and their fried potatoes where lacking that little bit of something extra.  I can't help but wonder if their venison was lacking salt as well?  I can only hope they tried licking the ground themselves, but I suspect that isn't the case.
They did dig a 200 foot well - by hand which is pretty incredible since I can barely dig a hole deep enough to get to the failed drain tile in my back yard.  They did find salt (brine), but along with that was a "healthy" supply of crude oil.  I say healthy because McKee and Thorla decided it must be a good thing to market as a tonic for health.  In other words, they used the same logic health businesses use now, "It comes form nature, so it has to be good!"  CBD Oil for everybody - there is absolutely nothing it can't cure!!!  They bottled the crude oil and sold it as "Seneca Oil" because I guess "Snake Oil" was already being sold by two other guys.  Hopefully they got rich from both salt and Seneca Oil.  Sadly, McKee and Thorla were dead by the time the value of crude to propel motorcycles became known.
This oil well is often described as the first oil well in North America, since it was one of the first times oil was purposefully extracted from the ground for financial gain.  If nothing else, it is a very early extraction of oil from the ground for commercial purposes in North America.  Additionally, Silas Thorla has to be one of the coolest names ever.

The well itself is just a grubby, oily hole in the ground and it is a bit hard to find.  There is some other weird log contraption hooked up to it, but whatever it is supposed to be isn't clear.  It is an interesting piece of both North American and Ohio history.

After seeing a bit of Southeast Central Ohio Historivia (history combined with trivia), we headed to the ultimate destination of The Wilds.  The Wilds is a reclaimed strip mine turned animal sanctuary.  They offer places to stay and various tours.  A yurt and tour was scheduled for this trip which comes with food and a few other things.  I originally heard about The Wilds from Ohio Cooperative Living, the magazine from our electric coop.  I couldn't tell where on the spectrum from campy to cool this would be, but the chance to be up close and personal with rare animals was at least interesting.

We stopped at the gate and were told we could head up to the yurts.  At the "Concierge Yurt" we were given our key and some additional information.  The yurt itself was tucked into the trees.  There were other yurts with better views overlooking the water and possibly animals; I don't remember if they cost more... (yes, they do)

The yurt itself is pretty comfortable.  Like all nomadic yurts, it has electricity and modern plumbing and like the yurts of inner Kazakhstan, the open area at the top is conveniently covered with Lexan.  OK, so the whole yurt thing might be a little gimmicky, but it was kind of neat at the same time.  I did appreciate the air conditioning...
After settling in, we walked to the nearby overlook.  It was a bit of a poke to where the animals were, but we had binoculars with us that allowed to see them quite well.
I was pretty fond of the rhino and her (I assume) baby.

Many of the animals seemed to like the water.  With the ongoing near-drought conditions, I'm glad they have water.

I'm not sure what kind of antlered thing this is, but it was pretty cool.

We headed up to dinner and were the last ones seated even though it was early relative to our normal dinner time.  Looking around, I strongly suspect we brought the average age of the room down.  The geriatric generation was well represented.  This is good, the "school season" is the best time to travel.
Dinner was good and our waitress had an interesting tattoo.  I couldn't see the whole thing, so I finally asked her - it was a skull with a bear inside it with the words, "Bear In Mind" under it.  Cute...

We took our dessert to-go and walked back toward the yurt, stopping at the overlook again.  The sun started to go down and the shadows got long.  Temperatures dropped and the animals started coming out again as they will at dusk.  I was able to get a few more pictures before the light level dropped to make it impossible with the zoom lens.
I won't guess what kind of deer this is, but the antlers were impressive!  Maybe a Pere David's Deer?

The rhino came out again.  I still like the rhino.

But I think I like this bulbous guy even better.  Looking at list of what The Wilds have, I think it is a Sichuan Takin.  Sure ... whatever.

They were having a fire at the overlook and a small group was gathered around it.  I was a bit worried I'd get in a situation where, if I sat down, it would appear rude to leave.  So we headed back to the yurt and wished they were a little more sound-proof.  Not because the four-legged animals were noisy, but the two-legged ones were.  I guess some yurt-dwellers are a bit hard of hearing too.  Such is the glamping life.

Eventually we turned in for the night.  No, it wasn't a day pouring on the miles on the bike, but it was a day of good weather, great roads, interesting sights and lots of unusual animals.