Will May Showers Bring April Followers?

It's Wednesday.  Normally I would have a Spring Things post.

I would post beautiful flowers now blooming where I live in upstate New York, such as these dogwood blooms.

Not today.

I am taking my normal Spring Things post and turning it into still another post about April the Giraffe.

Yes, that April, the giraffe who gave birth live on a webcam on April 15, as over a million people worldwide watched. 

Animal Adventure Park, where April, Oliver (her mate) and Taj (her baby) live, is about 30 minutes from where I live. It's located in a rural area near Harpursville, New York. And this week has not been a good week weatherwise for our part of upstate New York.  So this post is a little about local pride.

I want people to visit this area.  Heaven knows, we could use some influx of tourism dollars.  Face it, when you think of where to vacation, Harpursville is not on the top of anyone's bucket list.  Neither is where I work, Binghamton.

At this point, you are asking yourself one of three questions:
1. Has the author of this blog lost it?
2. Who cares?  Why would someone waste hours watching a giraffe pace back and forth?
3. I love April! What's going on?


A bad storm last Monday didn't make life easy, but life went on.  Thousands were without power, many trees were down.  Friday, another event.  Thousands without power (some the same people who were without power from Monday to Wednesday, or even longer).  There was some flooding. Animal Adventure is safe, but the torrential rains (more rain over the weekend) has not made it easy for them, as they struggle to open on time - May 13.

So, about that webcam everyone watched: The webcam is no longer on 24/7; it is on between 4pm and 8pm Eastern Daylight Time every Tuesday.

You can access an archive through April's website.

For me, and many others, watching April is like watching an aquarium or a fire burning.  So relaxing.  The cares of the world melt away.  Threats of nuclear war and other man made disasters are far away for a few moments.

But four hours a week (no, I don't watch it continuously) weren't enough for me.  Animal Adventure Park isn't open yet, so I knew I couldn't get in, but my spouse and I could still drive past it.  So we did, and here are my pictures taken April 29.

Here is the road (Martin Road, in Harpursville, New York) that leads to April's home.

First glimpse of the property.

The sign (sorry, I could have used a zoom but I was using my iPhone SE).

Closer....and you can vaguely see a lot of construction behind that fence.  This was made possible by the attention (and money) from the months that April was a viral celebrity.

Ah, if only I could have seen through that fence.

So no, I didn't see April.  In fact, I didn't see anyone.  I wonder if they were on their lunch break on that beautiful Friday afternoon.

I will leave you with one more picture of a dogwood taken yesterday.  This particular blog post doesn't begin to show the beauty of upstate New York.  So I have a question:

Are you an April fan?  Are you thinking about visiting Harpursville, New York to see April and her family?  If you are, do you want to find out more about the Binghamton area?  Let me know in the comments, and I'll be happy to blog more about what you might be interested in.