Recent trip to Phoenix Zoo

Penny and I went to the Phoenix zoo recently. I hadn't been in quite a while. We went to see the Lego sculptures. I put most of those photos on Facebook and so only have one of them on here.

There have always been turtles in the moat where you cross the bridge to the entrance since I was a child.

Penny and sunflowers.

This little guy looked like he was really studying the map.

There were two types of Gila monsters. This was the banded one.

Sonoran toads. We used to see these a lot in the desert edges when we were kids. They were huge.

Well nourished prairie dog.

Coatamundi. Looking at how big it was and the long tail, I think that must have been what I saw the hind end of several years ago in Aravaipa Canyon. I used to think it was the end of a black jaguar, which are super rare. But Coatamundi's are known to live in Aravaipa and the tail looked a lot like what I saw. 

Condor

Javalina

Mountain Lion

Wolf

Watutsi Cow

Cheetahs up against the building

Fun new squirrel monkey exhibit.

Caracal

 Galapagos Tortoise

Jaguar

This was a better photo of the Lego chameleon

Baby orangutan.

Daddy

Monitor lizard

Rocky Point 2016

Last Spring I entered a raffle to support my friend Mamie and the organization she works for, Camp Colley. I was very surprised to find that I won the Grand Prize! It was a 3 night, 4 day stay in a very nice beach condo in Rocky Point. I had not been to Rocky Point since I was a child. We used to go and camp on the beach and take our sail boat out.

I had not been sure if I felt confident driving into Mexico with my car, but now I was going. Penny Karr, and Helle Brand came along with me.

 

My photos didn't end up in order. But I was very pleasantly surprised to find what a nice location our condo had. We were about 15 minutes South of Rocky Point. It was relatively secluded and so we had the amenities and beautiful beach almost completely to ourselves! This beach was had so many sea shells. It was really fun to walk along and see new treasures with every turn of the tide.

 I had been thinking I wanted to get a cowboy hat

for a while, but they were always more than I wanted to pay. I was happy to get this one for 15$!

 On our last day, we were wandering in a particular shopping area known as Rodeo Drive. Helle followed her nose to some fresh baking in the back. There was a group of 3 who were making some wonderful Pan Dulce, and cooking them in a wood burning adobe oven. We had to get one to try. It was so cool to see the old methods and time practiced efficiency with which they worked.

 We had beautiful sunsets every night.

 In the past, I have rarely taken advantage of the amenities at places I have stayed. Some of that is due to self consciousness of walking around in a bathing suit. There were so few people here, that I just didn't care. We pretty much had our choice of all the different temperature pools and spas, negative edge pools, etc. It was delightful.

Penny and Helle didn't have any of my self consciousness anyway! We spent lots of time out of doors

We only ate out one meal, but it was quite good. The condo owners had recommended a few places. We ate at the Point. This shrimp cocktail was wonderful. And we had a little mariachi music to serenade us as we looked out over the ocean

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We were on the 11th floor. We had access to all the pools in our building and the building next door. Can you see how empty they and they beach were?

 There were a string of rather odd beach homes past us. They were in all different states. But again the beach was clean, lots of shells and mostly ours.

Penny getting ready to go down. And here is a photo of our building on the right and the adjoining property.

The negative edge pool seemed to disappear into the ocean. It was fun to swim in it. It had lots of fun features, like these water lounges.

My feet and the wonderful reflections of the clouds in the water. What more do you need to relax?

Farther away we could see some distant islands and different birds, we saw gulls, pelicans, cranes, egrets and sandpipers.

We couldn't get over how healthy even the cholla looked here.

The lobby of our building. The doors were always open straight through to the view of the pool and ocean.

We spent one whole day in town. One of the places we discovered was CEDO. A marine life institute. They had this whale skeleton out front.

Getting ready to go into this building, The Point, for our lunch.

The area is famous for it's shrimping. Here is a shrimp boat. And we watched these guys below fishing while we had lunch.

Various water sports were going on while we had lunch. We watched people being towed on various inflatables, these people were going parasailing.

Helle found this shop. There was a gal who was sitting there hand painting all these fabulous platters and bowls. The colors in the market place were amazing and the prices were fantastic.

 This statue shows the importance of shrimping in the area.

Some of the interesting sights in the area. We saw lots of murals on buildings.

Another trip, we need to go horseback riding.

 I definitely want to go back!