Zoo Hike and Brown Out

Hi one and all we finally have internet again hopefully it will last until I finish this post. It has been a strange and busy time since my last post. My neighbour who let me use her internet has headed home so we have had to use the park internet, it has also been absent for the last week. Last Thursday we went to the Living Desert zoo and gardens with our friends Al and Shirley. We had a blast. They had a big screen tent with a bunch of budgie type birds from Australia. You walk around with a Popsicle stick with bird seed on it and the birds attack.

At one point Kelly had 6 or 7 on him if you include the two trying to get into his shorts pocket. Fun but just a little freaky. They also have a giraffe that is about to give birth. She wasn't out in the pen but the others were.

They had a wide variety of critters and about 125 different types of cactus. The Zoo is open until 5 pm now but in the summer time it is only open until 1 pm as it is to hot. They have a model train set up that covers about 2/3 of an acre.

If this next guy was in Texas some Yahoo would try and mount his horns on the front of his car. Not sure what car they would fit on.

We spent the day there and had a good time, there are 482 other photos but we don't have enough room here for them.
There has been a mass exodus from here over the last week. The pool is not very busy, we don't see as many people when we walk around the park. We will be leaving here the 2nd of April heading for Phoenix then Tuscon for a couple of days. The wind storm that started Tuesday and stopped late thursday night hasn't helped things. The wind blew about 35-40 miles per hour with recorded gusts to 63.5. Yet if we drive 20 minutes to Palm Springs there was little to no wind. On our way back from Palm Springs we took this picture as the car in front of us vanished in a cloud of sand.

Yup our first "Brown Out". They closed the road shortly after this. I think the part that was the worst was the continuous noise. You don't always notice it but after 2 and a half days of non stop wind YOU notice it.
On this past Thursday we went on our last hike of the season. I have a knot on my Achilles tendon, so our hike leader Jerry taped me up and away we went. It was a nice 4.4 mile hike that allowed us enough time to go as a group out for lunch at the Souplantation.

There were only 12 of us but it was enjoyable.
Hopefully they have fixed our internet and I can update this once more before we leave.
Take Care Junkel