Friday!

On Friday morning my friend Anne arrived all the way from Maine for a visit!  Of course, she came to see her son and his wife who have relocated to Grand Rapids - BUT - she kindly found time to also visit me too!
Lucky for us Daughter came along to keep us in line and from wandering off doing old-lady things.
Our first stop was Marge's Donut Den just around the corner from me.
And look!  Before we even entered the gates at the zoo, Daughter rescued a teeny tiny baby snapping turtle.
She is amazing like that.

This was Anne's first trip to John Ball Zoo.  No one goes to this zoo without having a picture taken at the John Ball statue.
Daughter told Anne that it is tradition to pick his nose, but Anne is mature and of good manners and chose not to.

We rode the Funicular up the hill, which is always fun, but the incredible view of the city was hampered by foggy skies.
And the tigers were in their lovely enclosed walk-way through the woods, but they were sleeping in it.
I apologized to Anne for not calling ahead to have someone wake them up so she could enjoy the wonder of walking in the woods with tigers.  I do not know if anyone has ever seen them do this, but it IS a nice thought.
This lion is lovely, and did cooperate a bit more.  Of course in Michigan sports the Tigers and the Lions are known for not doing what everyone thinks they should.

This is Sammy, my favorite animal at the zoo.
He is 34 years old.  Apparently, he is not the Alpha male as one would think.  The Alpha is actually a balding gray-haired female whose daughter was grooming her while we were watching.
I told Daughter we just may be looking into our future.
Back to Sammy.  He is a loaner.  He does enjoy looking at people's shoes, and he had a great time nodding his head back and forth and up and down along with Daughter.
Daughter was having a great time.  She did not have to constantly be counting children.
Just two slow moving old ladies who never did attempt to run away from her.

The cougars started out lazy, but got a bit more active.  "Here kitty-kitty" means nothing to them. They certainly are gorgeous creatures.

This grizzly bear was active and put on a pretty good show for us.

I love this wall of plants.

In June when I was last here these howler monkeys were howling their little hearts out.
Not a peep out of them today.

This trip I didn't take many flower pictures.
But whatever this is, it is lovely!

Daughter is sort of a Dr. Do-little.  She not only talks to the animals, she dances with them also.

Okay.  So I took a FEW pictures of flowers.
And a waterfall.

The trout were interesting too.

Yes.  She even talks to fish.
They really were quite entertaining, even jumping out of the water every now and then.
Anne had a great time too!
After we roamed around the zoo we stopped in the zoo gift shop, which is very nice.  Anne has two grandchildren in Maine who needed gifts from the zoo!
The zoo was not crowded at all.  It was muggy, but most of the animals were active and it was possible to stand around watching them at length instead of feeling like you had to hurry along so other people could see them.
After the zoo we went to Hunan for lunch.
Anne requested to do those three things when she was here, and since Marge's, John Ball Zoo, and Hunan are three of our favorite things to do here it was a great time for the three of us!
And I think Daughter actually got to ENJOY the zoo instead of constantly counting heads.  Also, we never requested that she buy us anything!

 I shall leave you with this reflective picture of pelicans, just because.
You are very welcome!