Spring Breakin' 2015 Pt. 1: A Day At The Phoenix Zoo

It's Spring Break! More precisely, it's still Spring Break. Our charter school gives its kids a two-week spring break, which is great if you take a trip for part of that time (like a trip to Disneyland, for example), but not so much if you have nowhere to go. That second week can definitely start dragging if you don't plan well. The girls and I have gotten a bit restless at times during this vacation; however, the weather has been terrific and we have found a few good activities to pass the time.

Our biggest activity of Spring Break 2015 was our day trip to Phoenix last week. I decided to take the girls to visit the Phoenix Zoo. We had visited this zoo one other time, briefly, a few years ago. However, that trip only lasted a few hours and we only made it through half the zoo; we learned then that the Phoenix Zoo is an all-day destination. For this trip, we would make no other plans (other than a quick stop for dinner on the way home); it would be all zoo, all day. I just had to hope that would be "enough." Plus, as members of Tucson's Reid Park Zoo, were were able to get our price of admission reduced by 50%. That was a big incentive in coming as well!

As it turned out, the Phoenix Zoo more than filled up our day. In fact, we still didn't make it through the entire zoo (although I'd guess we saw about 80% of it, which was much more than on our previous visit). Overall, it's a pretty decent zoo. For its size, it has slightly fewer animals than you might expect. In addition, some of them like to hide and aren't always easy to be seen by visitors. However, I chalk this up to the zoo having spacious, clean enclosures for their animals where they can feel comfortable. Besides the animal enclosures, the whole zoo is clean, nice-smelling, and well-organized. There are a lot of small "play areas" scattered throughout the grounds for younger children, including multiple playgrounds and an impressive splash pad. It's a well-thought-out place!

While at the zoo, I wanted to make sure the kids experienced activities that weren't available at the Reid Park Zoo in Tucson. And even though it cost a little extra money, I decided I couldn't pass up the opportunity for the kids to visit Stingray Bay...

...and have a chance to pet the stingrays and watch them have their lunch!

It was a really neat experience. The "bay" was a shaded, shallow pool that had a few dozen stingrays swimming around in circles. The rays were of various shapes and sizes, and visitors were free to "pet" them, so long as they didn't grab their tails or their sides ("wings")

Touching the stingrays was both cool and a little creepy at the same time. They feel about the way you'd expect...chilly, rubbery, and a bit slippery. The girls were fascinated, and we spent quite a bit of time there.

At the time of our visit, it was possible to buy some shrimp and feed the rays. Not wanting to pay yet another extra fee, we opted instead to watch others feed them. It was a little surprising how bold the stingrays became when presented with a snack; they would often start splashing loudly in the water, and start climbing over one another to better reach the food!

When offered food, many of the stingrays would even tilt their heads clear out of the water, with their beady eyes rolling around wildly on the sides of their head, and their gills and little slits-for-mouths opening and shutting frantically. It was more than a little unnerving. Let's just say I don't want to be caught alone in the water with one of those things chasing me down.

But viewed in this safe environment, the stingrays were quite fun. It got me thinking of SeaWorld in San Diego...I hope we will be able to take the girls there sooner or later!

Another new experience for our family was a trip inside a monkey habitat!

 

The Monkey Village is an enclosed walkway, which is home to more than 20 spider monkeys. There are trees, ropes, tree houses, and various activities throughout the habitat for the monkeys to play with. Visitors can move slowly along the walkway and observe the monkeys up close and personal.

We didn't see a ton of monkeys...perhaps a half-dozen or so. But the few we did see came quite close by. They appeared to be very used to humans, and weren't alarmed by us.

Many of them crawled right overhead, using ropes strung over the pedestrian walkways for that purpose. It was really cool!

There were a few other great apes at the Phoenix Zoo that I enjoyed showing the girls (there are a few gibbons at the Tucson zoo, but nothing larger). They were amazed at the large orangutan habitat, and the cleverness and playfulness of the young orangutans we saw.

Another exhibit I really enjoyed was the Desert Lives trail. Although still part of the zoo, the trail was unpaved, and the landscaping was very authentic. It felt like the zoo had merely "roped off" part of the desert for its purposes. In fact, the bighorn sheep habitat was built right up the side of a rocky hill!

There was also a large ibex habitat nearby, complete with awesome statue.

This part of the walk was a lot dustier and "wilder" than the rest of the zoo, but I enjoyed the mood it set. It makes visitors feel more as if they have traveled directly into the wild to view the animals. It reminded me a lot of the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum near Tucson, which has many similar walkways.

I can't list off all the other perks the zoo had to offer, but it is a very busy, happening place! Among other things, the Phoenix Zoo has a large wooden playhouse for youngsters who need to get their wiggles out...

 

 ...a spacious, refreshing splash pad, complete with a wet indoor "cave" and slide...

 

...a "Farm" section, featuring many common barnyard animals, as well as a farmer's many tools...

...not to mention a petting zoo, which lets you get up close and personal with several goats.

There's also a metal sculpture garden...

...a giant interactive "spider-web" for the kids...

...and lots of cool animals to see, including:

Bald eagles;

jaguars;

 

Rhinoceroses and warthogs (or "Rocksteady" and "Bebop," as my Ninja Turtle-loving kids called them);

and komodo dragons (a personal favorite of mine)!

As you can see, Celeste had her Flat Stanley doll with her for much of the trip. He is part of a school project, where the student must take Stanley with him or her on their next trip, or send Stanley to some far-off relatives to bring back souvenirs. We managed to do both things over Spring Break; we brought Flat Stanly to the zoo, then sent him to visit Uncle Ray and Aunt Adrienne in Connecticut! Here's hoping he comes back with some neat artifacts.

We managed to stay right up until the zoo was about to close (taking short trips out of the zoo to get our lunches out of the car). It was perfect weather; warm yet overcast, with an occasional drizzle to take the edge off the heat! Afterwards, we headed for home, stopping in Casa Grande for dinner.

We had a great time! Due to the cost and the distance away from us, I am honestly not sure when we will be back to the Phoenix Zoo. But we are definitely grateful for the fun road trip we were able to take. It was a great outing to fill up our Spring Break. In our next blog post, I'll show you what else we were up to.

Lorelai's Field Trip To Canoa Ranch

I have been a bit of a slacker this year when it comes to keeping up with my girls' schooling. I am helping them with their homework, of course, and making sure their grades are on track. However, in the last two school years prior to this one, I was able to volunteer in their classroom, and get an up-close-and-personal look at their classroom, their teachers, and their daily routines.

This year, for a variety of reasons, I haven't been able to volunteer in either daughter's classroom. Celeste's teacher was out on maternity leave for much of the first half of the year, and scheduling volunteer time with the substitute proved difficult. After her teacher returned, I was never able to really connect with her, and a regular volunteer opportunity never materialized. I have been disappointed in this situation, and I hope that for the next school year, I will be able to be a more regular presence in Celeste's class, as well as Aurora's.

Now that Lorelai is in fourth grade, it would seem that she doesn't "need" me in her class. By this age, most kids are pretty well-behaved and sedate. Her teacher has things well under control, and there aren't as many projects or activities that need lots of adult supervision. However, I still collect and sort the Box Tops for Lorelai's class, and I'll send in food if they need party supplies or something similar.

Being a chaperone on a field trip, though...that was something I could do! It would be a fun opportunity to spend some extra time with Lorelai and see how she is doing in her class. Plus, Lorelai begged me to go...perhaps she actually misses her old, boring mom coming to her class more often? At any rate, I signed up and went along for the ride to Canoa Ranch.

I'll be honest...when I first heard we were going to Canoa Ranch, my first thought was, "Why is Lorelai's class visiting a golf course??" That was the only "Canoa Ranch" in the area that I knew of. Pretty ridiculous, of course...naturally, the golf course had to be named after something! And this field trip, as it turned out, was a visit to that "something"...it's one of the oldest ranches in the area. It was formally established way back in 1820, and was a thriving cattle ranch (with a variety of owners) well into the 20th century. Tucson's current US Congressman, Raul Grijalva, even worked on the ranch in his youth!

In 2001, Pima County purchased the 6,000 acres that make up the ranch. They are slowly but surely converting the ranch into a historical site. There are several murals, costumes, and photo galleries up that detail the ranch in its earlier days, the history of its owners, and its impact on the surrounding area. However, the ranch is still very much a "work in progress," and has a long way to go before it is ready to be a full-blown tourist site. When we were there, many buildings were still closed off for renovations, and construction vehicles and workers were busily toiling on many scattered sections of the ranch. Tours are currently offered by reservation only.

Since this was the Ranch's self-declared "History Day," there were several docents and county employees there to talk us all through the ranch and explain everything within a historical context, as well as provide several hands-on demonstrations for the kids. Besides our school's two fourth-grade classes, there were one or two other small school groups present. Each group was rotated around between one of six "stations" that focused on different aspects of life at the Ranch.

Some of the stations focused on the regular work done on the ranch; for example, we got to see the old blacksmith's forge...

...and a few of the cattle pens. I thought the thick walls made of stacks of horizontal logs were really interesting!

 

In another location, we got to see a few of the ranch homes and imagine what everyday life was like for the families that lived there. In these houses were some clothing from the Spanish colonial period, as well as a lot of information about the Anza colonial expedition that passed across the ranch-land in the 1770s.

Some of the other activities were more hands-on. The kids had a short tutorial on pottery, and then got their own clay and a chance to "weave" their own pot. Lorelai's ended up being more of a "basket" than a pot, but I think she was satisfied by it all the same.

Other stations were more interactive for the kids. One presenter outlined the natural history of the land, detailing the dominant flora and fauna of the area. He slowly worked his way forward in time, starting with the primitive human tribes that lived in the area and finishing with the 20th-century white settlers.

Another station focused on the history of the railroad and how instrumental it was in shaping the economy of the area, with particular focus on how it affected the cattle-ranch economy. Several children were chosen to role-play significant characters from history here, and my lovely daughter got to be Abraham Lincoln!

Lorelai was not at all unhappy about being asked to wear a top hat and beard. She has been reading a book detailing the last days of Lincoln's life, and she has become very interested in Civil War history as a result. So it was fun for her to pretend to be this larger-than-life president.

After the roleplaying was done, the kids had perhaps their favorite activity of the day: cattle roping!

Well, not actual cattle roping...there are no more actual cattle left at the Ranch! However, the workers helpfully set up some bales of hay with small metal cattle heads as stand-ins. Then they gave each child a crash course in lasso swinging. As you can imagine, the results were not entirely successful, but the kids all had fun anyway!

The last station involved local foods. No, the kids weren't offered chocolate-covered crickets, although bug-heavy diets were discussed (those crickets are high in protein, you know!). The docent discussed the various types of grains and flowering plants in the desert that are fit for human consumption (since we were talking about pre-colonial times, corn wasn't considered a major crop in the discussion).

One surprising food option for desert residents is mesquite flour; basically, the inhabitants would harvest the mesquite tree's seed pods and grind them into a fine flour. Since this flour is gluten-free, its popularity has actually revived in recent years.

There were even mesquite-flour cookies available for everyone to try! They had an almost cornbread texture to them. Our house has a huge mesquite tree out front, and I confess that this experience made me a little curious about trying to make my own mesquite flour. We'll see if I'm ever brave enough!

Also available for sampling were tiny slices of prickly pear. It was a slightly sour taste, but otherwise not bad at all. The class had taken their lunch break shortly before this, though, so there weren't many takers for the snacks. Either that, or the kids weren't as adventurous as me.

After a small wrap-up lecture with the whole class, it was time to head back to Great Expectations Academy. The Canoa Ranch tour had an unfinished, rough around the edges feel, but I can see lots of potential there for future tours if the restoration process continues successfully.

In any case, it was a good opportunity to spend time with Lorelai. She spent a lot of time hanging out with me, and not much time hanging out with her classmates. I enjoyed her company, but hoped I wasn't keeping her from other social interaction. One of the things I have been most worried about this school year is Lorelai's social life. I have heard fourth grade can be a hard year socially for girls. And since many of Lorelai's friends moved or transferred schools last summer, I feared she would feel lonely and left out this year. In fact, she has seemed more standoffish than in years past...she often chooses to spend her time alone reading rather than talking to people. I have also noticed her withdrawing, spending less time with people, and acting moodier at home.

Here's how Lorelai during one of her not-moody times, cooking at home!

Thankfully, many people have told me that Lorelai is still friendly and vivacious at school and at her extracurricular activities. And her glum moods never seem to last long; she usually seems very content at home and with me and Nathan. In fact, I remember going through a similar "solitary" period when I was Lorelai's age! Unfortunately for me, that period extended into some of my junior-high years, and left me feeling very isolated and awkward. Hopefully Lorelai won't have to go through the same thing. I suppose there will always be something for me to worry about as my kids are growing up, and I should be grateful for all the good things about my beautiful daughter...like the chance I had to spend time with her on this field trip and learn along with her.