I was looking for something that we could do Sunday morning to kill time since Six Flags doesn’t open until 11 and OH BOY-O did I find just the thing!
Apparently, there is a place called Stanley Park a few miles away from Six Flags and the reason why this is relevant to my interests is because it’s known for having a large population of BLACK SQUIRRELS. Seems that some dude in the 40s was gifted with several black squirrels from Africa or something?!
This place is referred to as Black Squirrel Town on Roadside America and there even used to be a local store where you could by souvenirs but now it’s online only, I guess.
Obviously we needed to go here, and Chooch suggested that we grab breakfast sandwiches to eat there. (Actually, that’s already what I had wanted to do but you can’t even tell Chooch that you had the idea first, god forbid.)
So we went to some place called Baker and the Bean or something and it was a nice place! Someone working there mistook Chooch for someone in one of their classes so that was weird.
They had huge snickerdoodle cupcakes so we scooped one of those up to split between us.
It was ok! The icing was very thick and heavy cream cheese which was unexpected but not the worst.
Sat on a bench at Stanley Park and wolfed down our sandwiches (I only ate half because I was in such a hurry to see the squirrels!!) and then ran down a path into a wooded area where it was a SQUIRRELPALOOZA.
There were definitely black squirrels but way more Mr. Gray Guys. They were all running around and chirping at each other and for a second I was actually concerned that we might get attacked. It was like a wooded wonderland in this park though!!
Chooch has always been obsessed with geese and ducks so he was more into that portion of the wildlife free-for-all. These guys were so friendly! The geese in Pittsburgh are borderline aggressive. And that’s not even when there are babies around!
We spent about two hours here and it was worth every second – I could have easily spent more time in this wildlife paradise. The squirrels! The geese! The ducks! THE CHIPMUNKS!! I swear, we hadn’t seen chipmunks in Pgh for years and years it seemed but then started noticing them again within the last two years at the cemeteries – not in our neighborhood though. They are super scared of people though and zip past us with nary a shred of curiosity.
At this park though, we were basically stalked by the chipmunks! They kept running up to us waiting to be fed I guess. Henry went to the car to get change for the goose feed machines and found a lone peanut and some pieces of dehydrated strawberries and bananas.
(I kept telling Henry on the way there that we needed to stop and get peanuts or something but he was being a real STICK IN THE MUD* about it and kept mumbling excuses like, “We don’t even know if there are really going to be that many squirrels there.” OH OK so we only feed squirrels if there are…what, more than 5 of them? OK Cuz.)
I could never get my neighborhood Mr. Gray Guys to come this close to me! I wasn’t able to hand feed this babe, but he did get super close and kept hopping all around me until I finally just tossed a piece of banana to him.
But you guys, the chipmunks!! Chooch and I were both able to hand feed some and Chooch even got gently nibbled by one!
This picture sucks because Henry took it with his broken-ass phone, but here I am feeding a peanut to a chipmunk!! This might be “whatever” to a lot of people but I am animal-obsessed and have always been jealous of Snow White (lol), like I wish bluebirds flew around my head like a crown of flowers, etc.
Here please enjoy a boring video compilation I made:
On the way out, Chooch said, “Look there’s a lady reading a book in the rose garden. That could be you.”
TOTALLY! I would go there every god damn day if I lived in that area. It was IDYLLIC.
Oh! I forgot that one of the best parts was when Henry almost fell down the steps and then Chooch and I took copious liberties of reenacting it/mocking him.
It’s how we show our love.
Today, I went to the Black Squirrel website and bought a magnet!! I LOVE STANLEY PARK.