Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle, Washington area

We just got back from a week in the Seattle, Washington area.  We went to visit old friends there from college days and spent 5 days wandering all over the city and surrounding areas.  Today I'm going to post several of the pictures I took while at the Woodland Park Zoo.  It was the most beautiful zoo I've ever been too.  Not only were the animals in very nice natural habitat spaces for the most part but the pathways were lined with trees, bushes, plants and flowers.  It was pleasing to the eye and soul in whichever direction you traveled.  They had plenty of benches scattered along the pathways to just sit and enjoy the ambiance.  They animals seemed happy and were fairly active.  If you travel out that way try to make time for the zoo, it's so worth the trip!

When we first arrived at the Snow Leopard's exhibit, they were both laying down sleeping but then a bird appeared and this one got interested.  He woke and started creeping toward the bird.  It was amazing to watch.  

Once he came out the bird flew off and the poor leopard had to decide whether to go back to sleep or come out and play. 

He decided to play.  I loved watching him move, it was like liquid muscle.  

Bird came back, (dumb bird), so off he went to chase it. 

He marched around a bit to make sure his kingdom was secure once the bird was gone.  He was absolutely beautiful. 

Another animal that I fell in love with there were the Singing Siamangs.  They mate for life and stay together as a family.  The older siblings help raise the younger.  They sing to mark their territory and secure their borders.  They are very interesting primates.

Here they are right next to each other.  One is actually holding his ear as if he or she is trying to test their sound.  I found that so fascinating.  A lot of times they would move in close to each other and time their sounds perfectly.

Different pose but same song. 

more of them singing

Last one of them I promise.  I really loved these guys.  

I'll post more at a later date for now these were two of my favorites.  Have a wonderful day all.

Enjoying Family

Gary's off to work and the kids are upstairs sleeping.  Rob will be home from work in a couple of hours and I'll have all my kids home.  Other people look forward to holidays, for me it's these two weeks in the summer when my family is all together again.  I'm enjoying having everyone together ... cooking dinners and gathering around the dining table to eat and talk and laugh.  Making memories.  Watching movies together.  Gary got out a box of old pictures last night for him and Phoenix to look through.  Some of those pictures I haven't seen in years.  I am so happy for the digital age LOL.  

Yesterday was our lazy day, Rachel worked on "school stuff" and Phoenix and Rob played games before Rob had to sleep before work.  Phoenix went up to his room and did his thing.  I cooked most of the day and we watched some Project Runway.  It was a nice day to just relax a little.  Today we'll bring out the sewing machines and get some of the projects we need to get done .. done.  Maybe this evening Phoenix and I'll take a walk and do a bit of photography.  

Tomorrow we plan to go to OKC to Shakespeare in the Park to see Midsummer Night's Dream.  It'll be me, Rachel, Rob and Phoenix.  It'll be a lot of fun.  This is the birthday weekend.  Saturday evening we'll go see The Drunkard and the Olio in Tulsa and Gary will join us for that.  We haven't been there for several years and Phoenix wanted to see it again.   (I've included the links to both places in case you want to check them out).  Sunday we'll celebrate Rob and Phoenix's birthdays with cake and ice cream to round off the weekend.  

This week is all about favorite recipes in our family.  For Rachel is was the No-Bake cookies.  She has been craving those so I got those made up for her and while I was at it I went ahead and made Oatmeal Cookies with cranberries for Gary.  Last night's dessert was banana pudding.  We haven't had that in years.  The favorite birthday cake is the Wacky Cake every year for every one.  I've been making it for gosh I don't know almost 50 years.  They feel deprived if I don't make the Wacky Cake for their birthday day.  I've included some of the recipes in this blog post.  My oatmeal cookies recipe I'll write up another time.  I'll get some pictures up soon.  We're having a wonderful time.  Even the cats are enjoying the visit.  Bandit manages to get herself locked into one room or the other every night.  Our ninja cat sneaks in ... you would think one big fat cat could be seen but she manages to sneak past you every time.  I'm not sure how she does it but she wakes you up in the middle of the night wanting out of the room.  

Have a wonderful day and enjoy your week.  I'll post more later on this week.  

Our Visit to New Mexico

Our first leg of our journey out west was to visit my brother-in-law in Placitas, New Mexico.  He had told us that water was a problem there but I don’t think we were actually prepared for what it was actually like.  We knew that he had bought this beautiful home there and that a new well had been drilled for the neighborhood, the owner (seller) was responsible for the payment or his part of the payment as per the agreement when he purchased the house but then that well dried up just a few short months later.  Then the neighborhood began paying to have water trucked in but my brother-in-law purchased a 12 acre lot next to his property that has a working well on it and he pumps his water from that.  We assumed that it’s attached to the house but to do that it’s another 100-200,000 to have that done so every week or so he has to take this trailer to the lot and pump 250 gallons at a time into this tank on the trailer and then haul it back to the house and then pump it into one of the two 1000 gallon tanks he has in his garage.  That’s 8 trips to fill those tanks just to be able to flush his toilets or wash dishes, his hands, take a shower, do a little laundry.  This is hot, slow, back breaking work and it takes hours.  From what I was hearing from the natives there, they haven’t had real rainfall in twelve years.  I looked it up online and was only able to get the year 2015 … for the whole year … 0.65  … that’s all they received for the whole year of 2015. That is so hard to comprehend.  No wonder the wells are drying up.  The cactus is dying and the animals are wandering into the neighborhoods looking for food and water.  It is such a sad and devastating story for such a beautiful part of our country. 

   

Standing on my brother-in-law’s balcony I could see for miles.  His home is in the mountains and you can see the town in the distance and more mountains beyond that.  What a beautiful view!  Miles away you could see rain falling but it never made it to Placitas.  You look down at the parched ground, cracked and thirsty wondering what could possibly be causing such a long drought.  I know places where they are begging the rains to stop, flooding so bad that people are having to leave their homes and here is this beautiful mountainous country that is begging for just a few drops of rain to save it’s plant life, it’s animal life. 

He leaves pans of water at the edge of his property for the wild animals so that they might be saved.  He hangs birdfeeders from his trees and hummingbird feeders around his balcony as well as from trees.  He’s had all kinds of wild animals visit at night.  Lately he’s had a large black bear that comes even to the balcony and drinks from the hummingbird feeders.  A bobcat drank from his birdbath and left him a rabbit’s foot the next day as a thank-you.  Coyote visit to drink from his pans as well as deer, skunk, raccoon and squirrel.  He keeps cameras around to catch sight of the animals and each time he gets sight of a different one he buys a carving of that species to add to his menagerie that he keeps on a side table.  His beautiful dog, Hudson, is always at his side.  If it weren’t for the water issue, this would be the perfect place to live.  The peaceful existence between man and nature. 

Hudson is very camera shy and fought me about taking his picture.

Isn't he a pretty boy?  Love him so much! Such a sweetheart!

Eating Out in Phoenix

Gary and I ate out quite a few times while we were in Phoenix but there are two different places I feel are really worth mentioning here. The first one is a place called Switch Restaurant & Wine Bar   The food is unique and a mixture of southern, western and Cajun cooking.  Our server was Dan and he was amazing!  He made sure we received the attention we needed, knew what we needed before we knew we needed it and was amusing with his sharp wit and great disposition.  He really made our visit there amazing.  He managed his tables well, always managed to keep up conversations without making you feel rushed and yet he kept the flow between the tables going well.  He was wonderful at his job and seemed to really enjoy it.  The food was fabulous.  For our appetizer I ordered the Fried Green Tomatoes with the Argula, shrimp-sweet corn pico and lemon aioli. To be honest I wasn't as impressed with the fried green tomatoes as I expected to be and that's one of my favorite dishes but the pico was very flavorful.  It made up for the overcooking of the green tomatoes, the green tomatoes really didn't have any taste to them at all.  They were just sort of bland and being from the south we just don't handle bland food well.  For my entree I ordered The fried Catfish which I could have cornmeal dusted or blackened and I chose cornmeal dusted.  It was to be served with a summer squash casserole.  I love squash so that sounded great to me.  The catfish was suppose to have a charred tomato bacon vinaigrette. In my mind I'm picturing pieces of fish on a plate drizzled with this vinaigrette, squash casserole on the side.  Gary orders this Smoked Adobe Meatloaf  that's made with both pork and beef and topped with Smoked Adobe Ketchup.  I believe the meatloaf is grilled after it's baked in the oven but I wouldn't swear by it and then sweet corn on the side and sweet potato puree.  When our entrees came out I wasn't sure what to expect so my plate is put in front of me and it's sort of a low edged large bowl with everything stacked on top of each other and I'm like ... Oh Lord.  I'm one of those crazy people that really doesn't like my food to touch.  I look over at Gary and his dinner is stacked like mine is ... his sweet corn ... corn on the cob that has been soaked in this sauce ... so it's like creamy sweet corn on the cob.  I know my eyes were huge, I was wondered what kind of mess I had gotten us into.  Well, we may have to ask for more napkins before the meal was over but it was time to brave the meal!  I took my first bite ... it was the squash casserole and it was like my mouth was having an awakening.  It was delicious. I make a great squash casserole but this was magnificent.  As I'm eating, Gary is eating his, cutting the corn off his the two cobs it was beyond him to eat that with his fingers LOL but we discussed the meal and shared bites back and forth.  My fish was delicious, and I'm usually not a fish eater but it was cooked perfectly.  I ate almost every bite on my plate.  I was beyond full but the food was so good I hated to leave even a bite of it behind and even now my mouth waters over that squash casserole.  Someday I will figure out that recipe!!! It was a wonderful meal, we laughed and joked and ate and enjoyed the two hours we were there.  This is definitely a place I would eat again and again!

My Catfish dinner up front and Gary's meatloaf dinner further back

Fried Green Tomatoes Appetizers

The second place I want to mention is Alexi's Grill.  Where Switch was more a casual setting, Alexi's Grill was more fine dining.    We wanted to sit outside and enjoy the night and the clear sky, the stars, the evening was beautiful.  We found out that most restaurants in Phoenix don't open their outside dining until late September due to the heat so we were seated inside near a window so could still see the evening.  The manager was a woman and very sweet and made our evening special.  She wanted to give us dessert on the house since she couldn't allow us to sit outside but we declined the offer as there was no reason to do so.  We weren't offended and meal was exceptional.  The only thing I didn't like was their salad dressings, they had a choice of two ... both were creamy ... balsamic vinegar or mustard (that's yellow mustard folks and yup it tastes like yellow mustard!)  I wasn't impressed with either one.  I hate balsamic vinegar and the mustard dressing was really too strong and overwhelmed the salad completely.  So I only took a few bites of that and I was done.  Again, I was looking to be disappointed.  Gary had ordered steak and as neither of us really like potatoes we asked for vegetables to be substituted in place of the potatoes.  I ordered pork loin topped with sauteed mushrooms in a garlic Marsala wine sauce. I ordered Pinot Grigio to drink with my meal and I don't remember what wine Gary ordered.   They brought out our food and it was perfect!  They replaced the potatoes with candied carrots and oh my goodness they were delightful! I haven't had candied carrots in I don't know how many years ... and the broccoli was cooked to perfection.  There were three pork medallions were as large as a small steak.  There was no way I could eat three of them and the sauce was brilliant!  The Marsala wine didn't overpower the mushrooms ... the mushrooms were tender and fresh.  It was a most satisfying meal.  I actually ended up taking 2 of the medallions and the broccoli back to our hotel with us and then we took it to the condo so Gary had it for lunch the next day.  I didn't leave him any of the carrots LOL.

Doesn't that look delicious?  I didn't even take a picture of Gary's meal.  It was a steak and vegetables.

So if you find yourself in Phoenix and you need a place to eat, either one of these are great places.  One is more casual and one is more fine dining but both I would rate 4 star to 4.5 star.  Both had excellent service and food.

Desert Botanical Gardens - Phoenix, Arizonia

Everywhere we go, I have to visit the local Botanical Gardens.  I love it because they usually always have flowers, bushes, trees and plants native to the area and of course the Desert Botanical Gardens did not disappoint.  We have very good friends in Seattle, Washington and his hobby is cacti.  He collects as many different species as he can find.  Now you know he has to baby them in that area as it's cold, cloudy and wet a lot of the year but he does a great job with them.  He's built a green house so he can baby them as much as possible.  He belongs to a group there that works mainly with cacti.  But anyway, We we went to visit the gardens early Friday morning, our last morning in Phoenix. We probably got there around 9:30 that morning and it was already pushing 100 degrees so I knew we wouldn't be able to to wander the whole 125 acres.  We spent about 2 hours wandering the trails and admiring the flora.  I really don't know much about cacti but after visiting and examining a lot of different species I think I will study up on it a bit.  I found a lot of it fascinating.  Some of pictures I post I will have comments on.  I have no idea what most of this is ... if you do ... feel free to comment!

This is at the entrance.  The lightest trees are made of glass and donated from a local artist.

I had no idea what this was but it looked like some kind of fruit.  I know, I know us silly southerners ... but once I was told what it was I recognized the name ... it's a prickly pear plant.  Not only is the fruit edible but so are the leaves.  I found that very interesting and wanted to pass it on just in case there are others out there that have no idea like me.  LOL.

This is my sweet little lizard that seemed to be as interested in us as we were in him.  He was watching us and kind of walking and keeping pace with us while we strolled through a certain area so I stopped and snapped his picture.  He got very camera shy and skittered off after that.  I guess I offended him.

That's all the pictures I have of the gardens.  I only had my cell phone with me and it died while I was there.  I forgot my camera completely and wasn't prepared which seemed to be my mantra for this whole trip when it came to pictures but we did enjoy ourselves so I guess that was really what mattered the most.  We bought ourselves a bottle a water and stopped and refilled at the refill stations along the way while we walked.  It was a very hot day and the sun was extremely unforgiving but the gardens were beautiful and well worth visiting.  There are some shaded areas and lots of benches scattered throughout the trails so that you can sit and rest which we took advantage of from time to time.  There are birds that sing and many types of butterflies that flutter about from one flowering cactus to another.  they have nice rock water fountains so you hear the birds singing and water running almost like a brook in different places.  Then in one area there is this wonderful shaded place that has this great vine thing that has grown up and over and makes this cool area and they have little pots of flowers there and chairs to sit in and I think they had a soft flute music coming from somewhere but it was very tranquil and in the center because there are like 3 or 4 sitting areas there ... in the center this is this large flat rock with water that runs over it ... it's another type of fountain.  Just very peaceful and restful.  It's a wonderful place to just sit and meditate.   They have done a wonderful job on these gardens.

The Apache Trail in Arizona

Hi all we're back from our trip out to Arizona.  I'll be talking about our trip in different posts as there's so much to tell.  One of the most memorable parts of this trip was our little trip along the Apache Trail.  It was really an after thought, Gary's procedure had been pretty tough he was tired, the weather was extremely hot and we thought ... we'll take this drive.  We'll be in an air conditioned car and get to look at pretty scenery, how much more relaxing can it be?  Well ... LOL ... first of all.  It's a six hour drive if you do the whole drive from Phoenix but it was worth every minute.  You drive through the Superstition Mountains, the majority of the Apache Trail remains unpaved.  I think the whole trail is about 40 miles but the first part of the trip is paved and two lanes.  It's actually a fairly relaxing drive, lots of places to pull over and take pictures and oh my gosh ... breath taking scenery.  Mountains and gorges so colorful you feel you are looking through a kaleidoscope!  We passed beautiful lakes that I later learned were the Canyon Lake and the Apache Lake.  Water so blue and at times the mountains reflected in them they were so clear and mirror like.  Just beautiful.  I kept complaining about the electrical lines that were ruining my pictures (lol) because it was as if modernism was invading nature.  It was so wild, so majestic and so wonderful. Then we arrived to this tiny little trading post area that again I later learned they called a town called Tortilla Flat.  It had a small store and a pub/restaurant and I think that was it.  I'm sure there were houses somewhere but they were no where near that road.  Now ... this is where things get interesting ... most people have enough sense to turn around and head back the way they came because at this point the paved road ends ... now if you continue on it is only dirt road and a very narrow dirt road at that.  But, being as the road we had traveled thus far was so easy to travel we figured the dirt road couldn't be all that bad and we really hadn't seen the map so we didn't know about all the curves (extremely sharp hair pin curves ... one after the other ) one after the other on about 25 miles of dirt road.  We kept seeing these signs that would caution us for these one lane bridges and it was like ... really .. like this is a two lane road???? It was a very interesting drive and although there were many places I wanted pictures, there was no place to get out of the car to take them.  There were places where the mountain hung over the road and I would catch myself holding my breath as we drove under it.  Would I do it again?  In a heartbeat!  With a much better camera and in a jeep with the top down so I can take pictures standing in the seat.  I have never seen anything so beautiful in my life!   Here are the pictures I took ... they really don't do the mountains justice but I'm still going to share them.  I would like to share the  Apache Trail Website

This is a map of the trail we took ... the brown was the dirt road we took.