The second part of our little day trip was visiting the Reid Park Zoo in Tucson. We spent longer hiking than we anticipated, so we only had about an hour and 20 minutes at the zoo-worrisome, since I really enjoy this zoo and wanted to see everything. Well, that ended up being very doable, as we walked the entire zoo in about 45 minutes-and felt we were able to really see all the animals! I love this zoo-so much better than Phoenix, it is not even comparable. The only thing this zoo is missing is orangutans, and even that is excusable given how close you can get to all the other animals!
Upon walking in, we immediately saw the tiger pacing right in front of the fence. We were three feet away from him! The kids and especially James and Jackson were in awe. I LOVE seeing these huge animals up close-so amazing. He was growling like crazy too-even cooler!
We hit up the giraffes and lions next-we counted 6 lions, and they were actually walking around-the male even pooped right in front of us! The lions at Phoenix are usually comatose....so nice to see these great cats moving around.
The Grizzly Bears? Oh my goodness. They were wrestling and rolling around with each other! Who sees that on any given day at the zoo? You can't see them unfortunately in this picture, but they are right behind JD in that glare of the window. I could have watched them all day, they were so cute and cuddly, rolling around like big fluffy balls....
While this gem was far away, we still got a glimpse of the baby elephant-seriously adorable!
So with all that, this zoo visit went down as the best one in history-literally. We were walking towards the exit really satisfied, knowing Jackson was getting cranky and needing to eat. However, we ended up staying another 20 minutes because we hit a gold mine of sorts: we caught the trainer working with the tiger, and we got front row seats....it was so cool, probably the coolest thing I have ever seen in regards to animals. She had a huge bucket of raw meat that she fed him off a stick based on tricks he would do. She had him stand up on his hind legs multiple times, reaching way above her head as in the few pictures below. She had him roar really loudly several times-those teeth are huge! Basic thing like sitting, walking, touching a tennis ball through the fence with his nose-all earned him a mouthful of meat. The other worker kept telling us this training is voluntary-if the tiger doesn't want to do it, they don't force it at all. He really performed for us though, and it was so cool to see!
My favorite moment came when the tiger roared for the last time: Jackson roared right back at him in his little baby voice! Cracked me up!
We hiked it back to our van and I took a moment to try to feed Jackson. He did not want to eat, which was surprising, and I thought he felt somewhat warm. I cooled him off with a few cold compresses we had, but he still didn't want to eat. He took a cat nap while we drove to Sahuarita to try to catch the Hammerquists. They were not home, so we left the bag of things we had brought by the door and just stayed in their driveway for a bit while I attempted to feed Jackson again-still wouldn't eat, and he definitely had a fever. Thankfully, I had brought meds just in case, so we hung around for half hour waiting for the motrin to kick in and let him cool off/snuggle with me. He seemed happier thereafter, and immediately fell asleep as we headed back towards Mesa.
We meant to stop for dinner in Casa Grande, but given Jackson's fever, we opted to head straight home. Once we arrived, I was finally able to get Jackson to nurse a bit, though I had to pump to make up the difference of missing a few feedings. I laid him back down to bed and took the oldest four kids to Golden Corral since they were really looking forward to a restaurant....no easy feat, but they had a blast, and the food was okay.
And thus ended our day trip-it was great honestly, though I am yet sad that the Hammerquists are dealing with such a hard trial, and sad that Jackson is definitely sick with something. Tomorrow will be interesting with church (both Jared and I teach the second hour....), but we will make it work and definitely get a lot of rest in!
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