Tuesday at the Zoo

So on Tuesday, when we got up, we had to take the rental car back. All of us were a little sad, because that meant the end of our vacation. There had been discussions about what to do... some talk of going to the Heard Museum, but dad and DH were not interested, and we didn't want to split up on the last day. We ended up going to the Wildlife World Zoo, only about 15 miles from home.

It is a private zoo, and reminded me of the zoo in the movie "We Bought a Zoo." After getting over the sticker shock, we had a wonderful day. The ground is hard enough so that even though there are not too many sidewalks, it wasn't too hard to push mom's wheelchair.

They have an aquarium with interactive displays. I touched a starfish!

And a manta ray, but didn't get a picture of that. The starfish didn't feel like anything in particular, but the mantas were soft but muscular. Quite amazing!

These frogs are about 1 inch long! I love the colors.

There were many, many birds.

This was one of the highlights: I fed the giraffes! This guy knew his way around a feeding station, and he would wait for me to put a little food in my hand and hold it out, then he would grab my hand (with his tongue) and I would pour it on there. I don't think he dropped a morsel. I did it 5 or 6 times, because we wanted pictures on all media. We e-mailed a picture to DD2 and C and P, and heard back very shortly that C was jealous and wanted to be there! It would have been a lot of fun to have them.

DH and I went on the overhead tram. It was very nice! It was quiet, restful, and gave you a good overview of the whole park.

Can you see mom & dad in the above picture? No? Okay, here:

They are in the bottom left corner, resting and waiting for us to return. The weather was lovely, warm in the sun, cool in the shade. There was enough shade that I didn't even get sun-burned.

Here's a view of my feet and knees, above a resting kangaroo. The ride is so quiet that it doesn't disturb the animals at all.

After enjoying the animals we went to the restaurant attached to the zoo. We sat out in the patio and had this view from the edge of the patio.

And this view from the table. I kept catching something black out of the corner of my eye, so I pulled out the camera, and we discovered that the back edge of the flamingo wings is pitch black! (You can see it on the 2 pairs of outstretched wings.)

We had a lovely day! and a great vacation! We are going to have to start saving our pennies for next year! Getting 10 days of sunshine in February lifts me right up out of the blues, and that could easily become a habit.

Monday: Copper Mine and Arboretum

On Monday we went to the Ray Copper Mine southeast of Phoenix, near the town of Superior, Arizona. It was another mountainous road, with several stretches of 10% grade... which doesn't sound too bad but is actually amazingly steep.

The landscape looked so different from the previous Saturday! Northwest of "the valley" there has been only a trace of rain all winter. South east of the valley it was clear that there had been a little rain. I only got a couple of pictures.

Desert poppies!

First I was afraid we were not going to be able to find the mine... we did pass an open pit mine that would have been easy to miss, but we came around a corner, and There It Was! Half the mountain was dug up!

The colors were amazing, the size was incomprehensible, and the overall impression was overwhelming. The next four pictures are of the same location, zooming in a little more on each one.









The picture below shows the size of the bucket and the tires of the shovel in the picture above. That's DH and my dad in the picture, being dwarfed by the equipment. If you follow the link above you can see an overhead map of the mine.



They mine 2 kinds of copper, the metallic element and the oxide that has to be leached and electrolytically precipitated out of solution. I wonder if they give tours of the works? I think that would be fascinating as well... next time we will have to check.

This was the farthest point of our exploration. We returned to Superior, Arizona for lunch, avoiding chain restaurants. We stopped at a cute little cafe. Most of the "downtown" looked pretty forlorn; the "recovery" has not reached there yet. You could tell the cafe was just hanging on, they were very grateful for our business. I hope they make it!

After lunch we stopped at the Boyce Thompson Arboretum. (I didn't realize they were affiliated with the University of Arizona.) It was a beautiful day!

The first section had hundreds of different cacti.

It is amazing how many different ways there are to cover yourself with spines. Even more amazing was the fact that one type of cactus (endangered) was protected with a chicken wire fence, because the javalinas (small wild pigs) like to eat it!

You can tell what a beautiful day it was! This is my dad, providing scale (again) to show how big these cacti are.

This is an artificial pond, but water holes used to exist in the desert before the need for water for people kicked in. I see coots!

It was only a couple of days past Valentine's when I found this heart, appropriate for a rocky relationship. LOL

There is a section of plants from South America, which surprised me a lot. I didn't know Argentina had so many cacti, including one that looks like a saguaro but isn't. The plants from South America did not look like they were flourishing... homesick I guess.

This is the upper trail, that is not wheelchair accessible. Mom did not come along today, and we missed her, but we would not have been able walk this trail if she had been along. (She can walk fine, but doesn't have as much stamina as she used to.) We had read that the trail was 1 1/2 miles long, but by the time we got back to the car we could feel it. Hairpin turns on a walking trail!

I posed in this niche.

At the farthest point of the trail we came around a corner, and faced the Picket Post house:

I am quite sure there was another way to reach the house, but it was so unexpected to see it up there on the side of the hill.

As soon as I took this picture, my camera beeped, informing me that I had no more memory in my camera... and the rest of my memory cards were in the car. So, I walked the rest of the circuit and just looked at the beauty, instead of taking pictures. There was a river with beautiful vistas opening up over the water, and an Australia section with huge eucalyptus trees (that reminded me of Argentina as well); an herb garden, a rose garden, and more.

Both going and coming to Superior we ran into a lot of traffic for the "Renaissance Fair." I think that would have been interesting, but I think we made the right choice to go look at the beauty of Arizona instead.

Prescott, Arizona

A week ago Saturday we went to Prescott, Arizona. To get there we took a winding mountain road, with very little traffic. The scenery was amazing! I took a bunch of pictures to use to make Arizona color palettes; unfortunately, I don't think my camera picked up the greens correctly. (It is either that, or my computer... DH has a bunch of pictures, and I am going to look at those too, but I have to move to another seat to do it.)

DH drove, enabling the rest of us to relax and enjoy the ride.

In Prescott we had lunch at the Palace Saloon; the food was excellent, the service was good, and it was a very cool decor. The original bar, over 20 feet long, was saved when everything else on the block burned down, the patrons moved the bar out into the park, across the street, while the fire was raging, and continued drinking. The original bar was built in the 1870s, burned in 1900 and was rebuilt then, and was refurbished in the 1970s. There was live music, guitar, bass, and accordion when we came in.

After eating, we did a little shopping (I got a cute pair of silver earrings!) and then went to the Sharlot Hall Museum, an outdoor museum where they have preserved the first territorial governor's log cabin:

This is one of the 6 (!) rooms in the log cabin. Obviously, it was not a hovel.

Elsewhere in the museum there was a display of Indian baskets, that was simply gorgeous. Unfortunately, I had trouble getting good pictures with the flash, but I will be able to see the patterns, if I need them. This picture turned out pretty good:

There was a log cabin school house, and a more usual log cabin, modeled by my dad:

I really like the wood stove. Of course, it didn't used to be a concrete floor...

They also moved the 5th governor's mansion to the property, built in 1875. It reminded me a lot of Lincoln's house in Springfield... same era.

All the beds had beautiful quilts on them.

We couldn't stay long enough to see everything, because we had to get to a party! I got to visit with 3 of my aunts, always a pleasure.

Handwork on Vacation

I did a lot of knitting on the trip, and some stitching as well. Here are my knitting projects. Someone gave our knitting group a kit to make chemo caps, 6 skeins of thread, 2 circular needles and a set of double pointed needles, and instructions for the hat, for a toe up socks cast on, and stitching with 2 circular needles. I made the blue one first, and I didn't believe that there would be enough yarn to finish the pattern. So that one turned out a little small. Then I made the brown one; you can see there is less yarn left over, and it fits very well. The third one is the green one on the right side. That one is already done, and the brown one and green one have already found a new home with someone who is going through chemotherapy. I can't believe how good it felt to be able to help someone who's going through all that.

I started an orange one, too, and I'm working on the brim. The work up quickly. I enjoy the yarn so much, (it is a cotton yarn with a lot of elasticity), that I ordered several more skeins. I got some pink, some more blue, some more brown, and some blue-green. I think several people in my knitting group are going to want to take some of the balls. (It is very reasonable yarn, each ball is only $2.98!)

Here is the Brazilian embroidery pattern I got. Once I start it, it shouldn't take too long to finish it, but there are sooo many projects I want to do, I really don't want to start another one. I am going to have to get going on some of the projects though, so I can start this.



Here's my TAST sampler: I will make a separate post to talk about the stitching, but I am quite proud that I am not falling behind on this. The cretan stitch and the detached chain stitch sections are done, and I had a lot of fun playing with them.

I have been trying to read some of the over 600 blog posts and 300 e-mails that accumulated while I was gone. I have a feeling that that is where a lot of my stitching time goes when I am home. I also uploaded another 250 pictures from vacation... I better get going on it.

no pictures!

No pictures today, I found out my flickr account was using up all my folks' bandwidth. I have a lot to share with you, on Saturday we went to Prescott, and today we went to see an open pit copper mine and an arboretum. I also have a new shawl from Mexico, with a cool story, and I have finished 3 chemo caps, and more than 12 inches of a scarf from my One Skein Sock Yarn book.

I will catch up with you soon!

Shopping (fun) Day

DH and my dad went to play golf this morning, so my mom and I took off shopping. Our first stop was Needler's Nest:



This store has supplies for Needlepoint and Cross stitch. A class in the back was teaching Hardanger. And they have the complete line of Edmar fibers, the rayon threads that are used for Brazilian Embroidery.

I found a medium sized Brazilian embroidery project, and picked up the threads to finish it. Most of the threads are only about $1.00 each, but the pattern called for a lot of them. I hope to get a picture of the project later.

Our next stop was the bead store:



It is not a huge store, but it is sure packed. I was sorry I did not need anything from there.

Our next stop was Dragonfly Yarns. This was a very nice shop.



The people were extremely helpful and they had a good suggestion for a Southwest themed project: I bought a skein of overdyed lace-weight yarn and a very nice scarf pattern that echos the mountains that surround Phoenix. Mom was asking if I was going to start it right away, but so far I have held off. (It has been a whole 6 hours since I got it!)

After that shopping orgy, we stopped for coffee and books at the bookstore, picked up groceries for supper on the way home, and then spent the afternoon on the patio, enjoying the warm breezes.

Wish you were here!

I finished my TAST stitching for last week, and started on the detached chain stitch for this week, but haven't gotten any pictures yet. It is turning out pretty cool!

Scottsdale, Arizona

Today we went to Scottsdale, Arizona, and spent some time exploring that area. First we tried to go to Taliesin West, the western center for Frank Lloyd Wright, but we were not interested enough to pay the rather exhorbitant entrance fees. We were quite disappointed that you could not even look around the outside of the compound, or see anything without taking the tour. Without going on the tour, there was very little to see:



most of the buildings are mostly under-ground. After that disappointment we went to the Fine Art Expo. Some very large tents are set up, and artists have space to display their artwork and even studio space to work on paintings or other work.



My favorite display was by Susan Hartenhoff, a bead artist. She had some beautiful things, and was very happy to chat with me about her work. Her web-site is www.susanhartenhoff.net
She had some cachobon work, some spiral work, but mostly it was bead embroidery.





She had some beaded satin stitch here with another line added "in the ditch" trying to mimic the fly stitch. The beads were so fine! These pieces were amazing... I didn't even ask the price!



DH insisted we stop at Knit Happens, the yarn store in Scottsdale. (He's a keeper.) It was a very nice store, but I did not find what I was looking for. C likes southwest style, and I wanted to find something to knit for him. I was sure if there were anything in the southwest style, I would find it in Arizona, but so far no luck. Mom and I are going to another yarn shop tomorrow, so maybe I can find something there.

(See, nice store.)

For supper we went out to a very nice restaurant to celebrate my mom's and my birthdays (a little belated for hers, a little in advance of mine). We had steak and chocolate cake, and wonderful company.