We Hope everyone had a Merry Christmas

We celebrated at our friend’s Garth & Sharon’s house here at Voyager. We were treated to a delicious turkey dinner with all the fixins. With pecan and pumpkin pie for dessert. yummy

Dave’s Christmas present was Birch Beer, which he loves. And unknown to me birch beer isn’t sold in these parts. I had our friend Garth getting it for me so Dave wouldn’t find it. Poor Garth had a hard time finding it, Calling us “Dam Yankees” what the hell is this stuff🤣. He had to order it from where else Amazon.  I also got him Dean’s chip dip which is the closest to Bisons Chip Dip, which is better and a Lays bag of chips, he usually doesn’t get Lays because there expensive. His Christmas present was delicious. 

We also had a very 

            Best Wishes for all the adventures that lie in 2024!

How about a traditional Black & White New Year’s Eve party at the Voyager Ballroom.

 

Dancing & Singing with our friends and the Jukebox Junkies

It was a great party fun had by all.

For my birthday I wanted Italian cusine so we went with our friends Sharon and Garth to Trattoria Pina. It’s a very nice restaurant on Swan Road where you could see the beautiful mountains from our seats. Both the food and the scenery were awesome. 

 

Our walk around the perimeters of the rv park. It’s nice to see the plants with flowers and the green grass.

We go by a house where Eve changes her sign everyday.

We visited the desert across the street to see if the lady made any new formations in The

One of her new rock creations, “Walking Gals”

Right after we saw the hummingbird on the tree, we saw the hummingbird on the ground.

Here are some of her newer creations, Dave dancing in the circle followed by a flower pot, a road runner, , a person with a stick, scorpin and a Mission front.

We picked the perfect day to visit The Reid Park Zoo. We both were really impressed as we didn’t know what to expect. While it is extremely small compared to other zoos found in the United States this zoo has just about everything that a visitor would want to see. It is home to about 500 animals including all the big named ones like elephants, rhinoceros, polar bears, lions, and tigers.

The bears name is ” Joaquin the Andean bear.” Joaquin has the cutest face so I wanted to tell you about him. Andean bears are also known as “spectacled” bears due to the tan coloration often found around their eyes, resembling spectacles or eyeglasses. He weighs about 400 lbs. Diet: Most of their diet, however, consists of herbivorous material such as bromeliads, palm trees, cacti, and flowers. Only about 5% of their diet consists of meat, mostly small mammals. This makes them one of the most herbivorous bears, second only to the giant panda.

In the Wild: Andean bears are the only bears found in South America. They are arboreal, using their long claws to climb up trees, where they build leafy nests for resting and feeding. This, coupled with their elusive nature, makes it difficult for researchers to study them. Because they are rarely seen. Andean bears do not hibernate because food is available year round in the tropical regions where they live.

Reid Park Zoo

The Reid Park Zoo, founded in 1967, is a 24-acre city-owned and -operated nonprofit zoo located within Reid Park in Tucson, Arizona. The zoo features more than 500 animals. It was unofficially established in 1965 by Gene Reid, the parks and recreation director at the time.

The Randolph Park Children’s Petting Zoo was first opened in the 1960s as a children’s petting zoo. In 1978 it was renamed The Reid Park Zoo. The zoo was initially funded primarily by the City of Tucson. In its first few years, it had rabbits, billy goats and a variety of domestic animals that were donated. It also had Prairie Dog Town, which had a loop road that went around it where people could drive their cars to view the prairie dogs. It is now home for polar bears, lions, jaguars, giraffes, rhinos, anteaters and other creatures. The zoo has come along way.

Birds in various places thru out the zoo. The first one I have no idea what it is only that it’s face is so cute, The other two on top are Crested Partridges, followed by a King Vulture, Scarlet Ibis, Yellow-knobbed Currasow, Southern bald Ibis, King Vulture, white-faced whistling duck, parrott and last but not least the Black Neck Swans. Just a teeny tiny glimpse of the hundreds of birds in the zoo.

Wesley is a Capybara who is 6 years old. Capybara are the the largest members of the rodent family and share similar characteristics to their smaller relatives like squirrels and mice. They can grow to 150 pounds, two feet tall, and up to four feet in length – so they really are the world’s largest rodents. He looks like he would be a great pet.

What is neat about the tapir is that it’s nose and upper lip combine into a flexible snout like an elephant’s trunk. They use it like a snorkel when they hear or see a prediture they go underwater and can’t be seen.

Above it’s Billy a Lar Gibbon Monkey. It isn’t really a monkey because it doesn’t have a tail like a monkey, but why it’s called one who knows? It is under a class called “Lesser apes.” They are found in tropical rainforests of southern and Southeast Asia. What makes him so special in the zoo is because he’s 51 years old, very rare for the species, he outlived both his wife and daughter who were here at the zoo with him. When your walking anywhere in the area of the zoo, if Billy feels like making sounds you’ll definitely hear him. First soft, repetitive one-note sounds, whoop, whoop, whoop, that build to a buildup of long, sustained trills, whooOOoo, whooOOoo. They can produce sounds much louder than any human being can make. What is really sad is that the gibbon species include the most endangered ape species, they also include the most endangered species of primates in the world.

I’m tickling a monkey and another monkey is in their swing contraption on the right.

What is neat about Black & White Ruffed Lemur is the word “lemur” means “ghost” in Latin. It’s the call/shout of theirs that sounds ghostly. Also, their eyes are a bright orange or yellow.

Gwen is a Linne’s Two-Toed Sloth. She didn’t want to wake up but we found out some interesting facts about Gwen. They move really slow and like to sleep a lot and sloths spend most of their lives on trees in an upside down position.  They do most everything upside down including eating, sleeping, mating and giving birth.

Unfortunately, We didn’t get to see ,

We did get to see these more common zoo animals

Jasiri, is the zoo’s male giraffe. He became a father on Monday January 15, 2024. Both, Penelope his wife and the male baby calf are fine.

Fireball the Rhinoceros was a tired guy.

Ttortoises Ferdinand the Galapagos.

The elephants were in their far pasture so we didn’t get to see them close up. Semba, Nandi and Penzi, are some of their names.

Bayou, the American Alligator got mad after I sat on him and went after Dave’s foot!

Herbie one of the Aldabra Tortoises, he’s over 100 years old.

Anna the Grevy’s Zebra gave birth to a daughter Malaika. 

 Their names of the Africian Wild Dogs are Grommie, Cricket, Terra and Sandy. Unfortunately, this species is critically endangered.

When I was younger and went to the zoo I felt sorry for the animals behind their cages. Now I feel greatful to the zoo’s for taking care of the animals and getting them to reproduce because a lot of them are endangered.

We got this album when we were kids, I always to see CSNY but it never happened.

I’m glad we got to see Five Way Street Band at the voyager ballroom, as they sounded really, really good. When David Crosby met the band he was impressed and said they sounded as good as they did. 

Everyone was singing, dancing, clapping and whisteling, a great time was had by all.

It was a perfect day, so myself, and my firends, Alicia and Jan went to the Desert Museum.

We all thought the leafs on this tree called “Alluaudia procera” looked really neat and unususal. We were told that these trees were rare, only grow in the desert, are very hard to take care of and very expensive to buy. That leaves me out of getting one.

A couple of places we visited at the museum. 

A great pcture of the tree and cactus shaking hands.

When we went into the Hummingbird Aviary this hummingbird wouldn’t leave Alicia alone. We told her she must look like a relative. 😂

It was my second trip to the Desert Museum and I still didn’t see all of it, It’s a great place. As The Arizona-Sonora Desert Desert Museum is ranked on TripAdvisor.com as one of the Top 10 Museums in the country and the #1 Tucson attraction.

After our adventure we went to the Coyote Pause Cafe for lunch, the day and lunch was

We would like to Congratulate our friend Bill for winning a Gold Metal in the intermediate mixed doubles pickleball tournament in Mesa.  Way to go Bill !!!