Nice Weekend

We had a rather nice weekend. Instead of Keith doing chores and working on one of the many still unfinished projects, his daughter Katie and her boyfriend John drove up on Saturday for a birthday slash Father's Day lunch and visit. We were trying to think of something to do other than just sit in the house all afternoon and had a choice between driving up to Tehachapi for a chili cookoff (boring!) or going over to our little zoo, the California Living Museum over on the outskirts of town by the river. Keith kind of wanted to go to the chili cookoff because he figured there would be BEER there, but I kind of wanted to go to the zoo even if they don't serve BEER.



So, Keith was craving pizza and we were thinking of just going to Rusty's where they do indeed serve BEER but Katie suggested BJ's Brewery where he could have pizza and about 50 different flavors of BEER, so BJ's it was. I hadn't had a BEER in months but decided to try their hefeveisen or however it's spelled and damn, was that ever good BEER! John had the sampler where they bring 7 or 8 small glasses of different BEERS and was getting a little loopy by the time he finished his. I was feeling a little woozy, too, not having had a BEER in so long.

Then, after lunch we drove over to the zoo. We were lucky to have a mild weekend with temps only in the 80's instead of the usual high 90's or low 100's, where you definitely don't want to be doing any outside activities. It was fun going with Katie and John, they were all getting into the few animals that they have there, with John trying to wake up the bears and trying to stick his finger into the bobcat cage to pet their nose, us cringing the whole time expecting him to get his finger bitten off.


Bobcats are just a little bigger than our house cats. The raccoons are actually bigger than the bobcats!


They have a new porcupine exhibit, I've never seen a live porcupine before, and a beaver swimming around and around in a pond exhibit. I've never seen a live beaver before either. The beaver shared his pond with a huge white pelican, never seen a white pelican before, either.

Most of the animals were way more active than the last times we've been to the zoo since it was later in the afternoon and getting close to feeding time. The raccoons were tumbling around together and the deer came right up to the fence to see us. The amputee squirrel was amazing, he must have gotten his foot bitten off or caught in a trap, but was still scampering around, albeit a little off kilter. I learned that they use their big fluffy tail as an umbrella when it's raining and as a blanket when it's cold.

Most of the animals that they have there had been injured out in the wild and were rescued rather than animals that were purposely trapped for the zoo.

We like the little foxes that they have, too.


It was fun and hardly any people there at all, kind of like having the zoo to ourselves. We did find out that the birds that hang around our house are probably scrub jays rather than blue jays, since they had some scrub jays there that look the same as our birds. I know blue jays have that plume thing going on which our birds don't have.

It was nice that Katie drove all the way up here, we were talking about the horrible boring drive and how much we all hate it and wish there was a more picturesque way to go, which there is but you have to go about 2 hours out of your way along windy mountain roads, so...