I don’t get out of town very often. I don’t like to fly, am kind of a weeny about exploring new cities alone and lost my compulsion to just drive aimlessly after not driving for 8 years. On my weekends, I would rather play at home than deal with crowds and traffic. Hell, I have put less than 5,000 miles on my truck each year I have had it. So I basically stay put.

Lion. We followed a feeding truck around so all of the animals came up to the fences to get their dinner.

That said, I have been promising sister Gretchen and brother Kevin that I would venture down to Phoenix for a visit some time this spring. Running the idea past Mom and Dad, we agreed it would be fun for them to try to be there at the same time and have a partial family reunion. Making the plans were complicated but we finally found a weekend that would work, and away we flew.

On Friday, while Gretchen was at work, the rest of us went to a Safari park where they keep rescued (mostly) African animals.

This is the grizzly bear. There were also 2 black bears, which were much smaller and cuddly looking.

Tiger. They had a ton of them and even a few white ones.

After following the meat truck, we went into this enclosure with the vegetarian animals — antelope, zebras, ostrich, and giraffe. They gave us a leaf to feed the giraffe and you could hold it out with your hand or put it between your lips and they would “kiss” it off with their 16″ tongues. The first one we met rejected me.

My new giraffe boyfriend. He kissed the leaf right out of my lips. That is the most action I have seen in a while!

And they had a month old baby zebra. Which was so cute I almost cried!

Baby Zebra! SOOOOOO cute! I love baby animals so much!

The rest of the vacation was pretty low key. We got rained out of a baseball game (Rained out in Phoenix — Crazy talk!). We spent a lot of time just chilaxin and watching Kevin’s little girls play.

Vivi and Dad playing blocks.

Vivi likes to sit at the tall counter stools. She’s just chillin’ with Grandma.