Then back to Paul's. Paul had to be sneaky, not letting Zamboni know that we were goin' on a trip. All packing done much earlier, yesterday in fact, we just loaded up the car, and Zamboni seemed fine.

Now in the car on the way to the zoo. Gives me time to create this page! Rain forecasted, but so far so good. :-}

Wow, in the past year they sure have made some new improvements. Nothing quite so extensive and big as the new cougar and bear enclosures over the past few years, but lots of other things. The wolfdogs have an expanded area, still small, but bigger than before. Eventually they will get the wolf pen when money is raised to give the wolves a much larger exhibit. The new pen for one of the bears is nearly finished. This area was once a series of four or five tiny little pens. It's not huge, but an improvement. What the zoo lacks in size, they make up in behavior enrichment. There is an active program so that all the animals are given things to do, mostly involving how they are fed, but also things to play on and games of various sorts, also mostly involving food.

It was overcast and fairly dark, but at least no rain. I took a lot of 'real' photos with my F5 camera, but I also managed a few with the coolpix. The wolves of course were a high priority. Somebody donated money to help spruce up the wolf pen, there was a lot of erosion in the sandy soil for the whole pen is on a slope and not very large. The new cement 'rocks' do look nice. Something to think about for the wolves at home!

Granite is now the alpha, only, male of the 'pack' which really is not a pack, but Granite and two females who no longer get along (which is not abnormal for female wolves). Red Bud is a litter sister to Wolf Park's Chetan and an older half-sister to Marion, our current alpha female. She looks something like Marion. I think prettier actually ;-)

The zoo has peacocks. Lots of peacocks. Lots and lots and lots of peacocks. Some white peacocks. I actually like the look of the white ones. At least they are different...

The only other animal I got digital photographs of were the raccoons. Several hand raised racoons having fun with a bucket in their pool, their pen has an artificial stream and little pond for the raccoons to wash their food in. One of the keepers got some eggs for them. Those were fun to wash. They can also climb up to the roof of their exhibit for a nice relaxing siesta.

On a completely different note, Terry has a really cool old truck. 1954 Chevy. Custom cab. Got a couple photos of it, and had to play with one of them. That's Marion behind there ;[)

There was another old thing - Cotton. She is 16 years old now! Wow, I remember Cotton from when I first volunteered at the zoo back in 1985!!!