Trip to Brandon

So Rob and I went down to Brandon/Tampa for about five days last week. He had a meeting in Tampa on Wednesday and his cousin Sandy was getting married on Saturday, so we just decided to hang out. So we drove down on Wednesday morning and Rob dropped me off at his parents and went to his meeting. He had another meeting (with a different person) on Thursday, so I again got to hang around his parents house all day. This wasnt' too bad, as I brought The Three Musketeers with me, which is a really long book: 738 pages (I am now on page 259), but is still shorter than the 5th Harry Potter book (the one we are reading now) which is 870 pages.

The Three Musketeers and Harry Potter compared.

The Three Musketeers does look bigger, but it's because it's a paperback and has now been stretched out a little. My point: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is really dang long, and I somehow feel like it has less of a right to be so than The Three Musketeers. (Side note added later: Reading the introduction to either Three Musketeers or The Count of Monte Cristo, I found out that the reason books of this era were so long was because they were originally published by chapter in newspapers, which paid the authors by the word or by the line...so authors tried to stretch the stories out a bit. Even so, I still found The Three Musketeers more engrossing than Order of the Phoenix. And, by the way, I also liked it more than The Count of Monte Cristo, even though people seem to think that one is Dumas' best. Maybe it was because I read it after watching the anime version, but I don't know...I read all the Lord of the Rings books after seeing the movies...)

Friday Rob and I went to the Lowry Park Zoo, which is a very good zoo. I don't know if it had to do with the fact that there was a tropical storm approaching the area, but the animals were more active than I have ever seen zoo animals.

The Siamangs were "singing" and swinging.

The chimps were hooting back from accross the street.

The tiger was pacing and looking in the window (which you can't see but is right beside it.) Apparently wondering how it could possibly get the to children inside staring at it.

The only animal that was chilled out was the sloth bear.

Then Saturday we went to the wedding. I didn't take pictures there because apparently I only take pictures of jungle beasts.

Such as Rob - He's like a cheetah!

The wedding was nice, but involved too much sitting around while we waited for the bridal party to arrive so we could eat. Man, I let everyone eat right away at my wedding! Then it took to long to get to the dancing. Come on people - marriage, food, dance, one right after the other. Does it seem to anyone else like too many things happen at weddings just so that they can have pictures of said things. Like the whole cake cutting thing, who cares, just eat the cake. Cake is for eating. Maybe it's just me. Maybe it was just that the DJ had to annouce and count down (3, 2, 1...) for both times they made the slice down the cake and for the moment of them feeding it to each other and for the kiss afterward.