Day in (some) pictures

This is a light week, and the kids have been working a little ahead. Holly took off with Robert; Trevor and I had several hours to spend. We decided to check out Mill Mountain Zoo, located right off the famous Blue Ridge Parkway. The zoo is on the side of a mountain, right in the middle of the city, and adjacent to the famous star that Holly and I visited back in May.

The humidity is high here in the mornings, and the sky is hazy.


This zoo is tiny, tinier than we thought. I'm sure we were done within an hour, but we saw some things we don't usually see too. Like the Burmese python getting fed. They use dead, frozen, and then thawed rats. It was pretty gruesome, in my opinion. The zoo person uses a hook and dangles a rat in front of the snake. Out of habit, the snake grabs and begins squeezing. Then a few more (dead) rats are thrown in. I was lucky on this picture--I snapped right at the same time the snake gulped. Ewwwwwww!


As the temp rose, the haze/humidity began to burn off. Roanoke broke 15 records last month for highest, or highest low, temperatures.


I was able to convince Trevor to head much closer to home before stopping for a very late lunch. We hung out for a while and headed to a new park that's very close to our house. No surprise that Trev was drawn to the creek. We found a giant tree with an odd lime-looking, citrus smelling fruit. (What fruit tree grows that big?) He also found a little mollusk shell in the creek.

I was really hoping to get a picture of the brilliant orange sun tonight, against the purple sky, but this was the best I could do.

It was a great day, and I'm going to sleep early, for once!