Trip to the middle of the country

We got back Wednesday night from our trip to the Chain Restaurant and Shopping Capital of the World, aka Book's home town. We usually spend the time with his family eating, playing games and watching movies, but this time was different. His Mom had a Plan of Action, and we were out doing things every day. Despite the incapacitating heat (nb: I happen to know a lot of people who love 90+ degree weather. I am not one of these people. Give me a cool, humid, overcast day anytime. Sadly for me we left the latter for the former, and this Bibliophile turned into a lump that could barely propel itself from place to another).

I mentioned about a week ago that I had particular animals in mind I wanted to see and capture on film during our trip: the red pandas and sun bears. Last time I had been at this particular zoo the sun bears were not out yet, and the red pandas were sleeping. Well, last week I had partial success: the red pandas were still sleeping, but I got a whole slew of pictures of the sun bear! It's hard for me to choose which ones to show you guys. So I will show a couple:

Look at that cute tongue! This guy was really quite small, and seemed to be enjoying exploring his habitat. I also got a cute picture of two elephants fighting over a stream of water in their exhibit:

Our excitement didn't end there, though. The next day we went to this great conservatory with several interesting biomes filled with beautiful plants and flowers.

One was even filled with butterflies! There was also a beautiful garden outside the conservatory

with a large sculpture I really loved (here are two wee small parts of it):

There were also lots of exciting birds (red winged black birds, common grackles, great blue heron, green heron, cardinals, hummingbirds, just to name a few) and other animals in the backyard (squirrels, chipmunks and HUGE bullfrogs).

All in all, we had a great time!