So far, my adventures have been plentiful! Beginning at the time we arrived. On the first full day of my vacation, we visited the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum in Tucson. My favorite exhibit was the Caves and Minerals, where you could take an excavating trip into a sandbox, and discover fossils, look at timelines dating back to the big bang, examine precious gems and metals, and climb through fake caves full of stalagmites and stalactites. I also, as always, enjoyed the aviary where fascinating birds with flashy feathers and interesting markings hop around waiting for a hungry camera.

On the second day, after breakfast at a good restaurant, called the Blue Willow, we hurried off to the Reid Park Zoo where we encountered two more aviaries and some active giraffes! The landscape here is amazing. Where there would be evergreen trees in Olympia, there are cactus with gracefully curved arms and thorns that jump at unsuspecting prey. After enjoying the zoo to its fullest extent, we hurried off to Phoenix, where we met with our cousins, aunts, uncles, and their Yorkshire terriers, Max and Jewels! We are staying with our aunt Dina, who has a lovely house and patio, complete with lawn chairs and palm trees.


On the third day we visited yet another zoo, the Phoenix Zoo, with our 5-year-old cousin, Lacy. Did you know that there is such thing as a monkey ‘aviary’? The one at the Phoenix Zoo is the only one in all of the United States. We saw tamarinds, a type of tiny chimps that jumped from tree to tree with their skeletal babies, the size of a cactus wren! We caught their frolicking on video tape. We also saw orangutans. My great grandfather would come to the Phoenix Zoo and watch the orangutans for up to six hours. I don’t blame him because they are so fascinating as they swing around. If they could talk to me, I think that they would be very intelligent. They could be gone from the wild forever in just five more years, if not for the breeding programs that the zoos have set up. This makes me very angry. We are destroying these wonderful creatures, by taking away their habitats. I wish I could do something to help them. After viewing the orangutans, who also seemed to be viewing us, we continued to the aviary and the otter enclosure. Have a happy Thanksgiving!


Emma Rachel