Erie earns spot on Reader s Digest list of affordable beach vacations goerie.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from goerie.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
After covid-19 forced many people to spend most of their time at home over the last year, eager travelers may finally be ready to get out and enjoy a vacation this summer. For the first time since the start of the pandemic, 63% of people plan to leave their homes
Starting Monday, Erie Zoo visitors are no longer required to buy their tickets online and arrive at a scheduled time in order to see the otters, red pandas or hippopotamuses.
They also won t have to socially distance themselves on the zoo s train or carousel, and entire families will be able to enter the Children s Zoo concession stand. We re starting to get back to something close to normal, Erie Zoo CEO Scott Mitchell said. We already have seen pretty good attendance, especially because the weather has been cooperative. People really want to get out.
The zoo, 423 W. 38th St., is changing its policies because nearly all of Pennsylvania s COVID-19 mitigation regulations will end Sunday. Businesses will be allowed to operate at 100% of their maximum capacity starting on Memorial Day and social distancing will be encouraged, not required.
Businesses were opened, babies were born, dreams took shape.
But in many ways, it felt like a chapter in our lives had been interrupted as circumstances forced us to refashion our goals and expectations.
Perhaps the disappointments of 2020 enhance our collective sense of anticipation as we look forward to 2021.
Some of that anticipation is rooted in the hope with the help of vaccines that the pandemic s hold on our lives will fade as the year continues.
In other ways, our sense of expectation for the new year is hard-wired, a part of human nature.
In that spirit, in no particular order, we offer 21 things to look forward to in 2021:
One of the favorite animal attractions at the Riverside Discovery Center has passed away.
Officials say Apollo, a 20-year old male lion, has died from cancer and age-related kidney disease.
Apollo was born in 2000 at the Erie Zoo in Erie, Pennsylvania. Apollo and his brother Zeus came to Riverside in 2001 and were very popular with guests and staff. Zeus passed away in 2015 from heart complications.
Photo Courtesy RDC
“The staff are deeply saddened by the loss of Apollo. He had an outsized personality that made him a favorite of many. He was an incredible gift while we had him and will be missed.” Anthony Mason, Executive Director of Riverside Discovery Center. In the near term, the RDC will move Nika, a female Amur tiger,into the exhibit, and Ussuri, a male Amur tiger, will remain in the current tiger exhibit. In the long term, the RDC will bring in new lions as availability allows and based on recommendations from the AZA species survival plan.