icy winters in bowling green, ohio

Photos circa winter 2009


I remember this winter. I was in my senior year, and I don't think I'd ever seen so many enormous icicles or so much frost on the windows--on the inside! Here are some pictures documenting all that ice and snow.

 The elusive white squirrel.

This I did myself. It was too good and opportunity to pass up. 

Bathroom window from the inside. 

Our dorm window from the inside. It was a very cold winter.

zoombezi bay

Photos circa summer 2009

For two summers I worked as a lifeguard at Zoombezi Bay, the water park attached to the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium. On a day off, I went on my own and took some shots. The perspective in many of the pictures is that of a lifeguard.

We rotated our posts every half hour or so, and you'd often see lifeguards walking from one station to another. The uniform was a shirt, shorts, Zoombezi-issue swimsuit underneath, a hat or visor, sandals, emergency whistle, and fanny pack. The fanny pack contained gloves, gauze, band-aids (for first-aid incidents), and a "seal-easy," a plastic resuscitation mask.

Lifeguards got to watch all sorts of people float by on the Roaring Rapids, the not-so-lazy river we called the "AR" for "Action River," because of the jets and fountains in it.

Ten hour shifts four days a week make for a very deep tan, even with SPF 50 sunblock applied twice a day.

The Seadragon, a rollercoaster ride at Zoombezi Bay, has been at the park since it was called Wyandot Lake. I've always thought the white beams looked like sun-bleached bones.

One of the stations at Crocktail Creek. The Seadragon rollercoaster goes by not three feet behind that seat, and if you're in that chair when it comes through, the vibration makes your teeth rattle. It's one of my favorite spots in the park.

columbus zoo and aquarium

Photos circa summer 2010


The Columbus Zoo and Aquarium is a major part of Columbus. Hundreds of people work there, thousands visit it each year, and it's home to plenty of incredible animals that you couldn't otherwise get so close to--or see in Columbus at all.
On this day I was visiting the Zoo on my own. The polar bear exhibit had opened on that very day, and I'd heard so much about it that I was determined to see it. Of course, I visited a few other places in the zoo as well.

Grizzly bears at play. They wrestled in the water for a while.

It's almost impossible to take a bad picture of a swan.