Vera had a bit of a sleep in (8:00) so we had a leisurely breakfast before heading to the Living Desert Museum. (Steven and Oma were both up super early, so they got plenty of coffee and book time). The name is a little misleading as the “museum” is actually a zoo. Vera loves giraffes so a must see stop was the giraffe feeding station. She was super pumped to feed the giraffe salad (three pieces of lettuce). The giraffe enclosure was picturesque, with a grassy ridge and trees and the illusion that it continued on all the way to the mountains beyond.

The zoo lays claim to several animals, that according to Oma, make excellent scrabble words (addax, oryx, kudu ).Vera had never seen a camel before and I wasn’t sure I had either so that became our next stop. On the way we saw a ankole longhorn cattle . This guy caused us all to take pause. It also started many questions. What was God thinking? Does his neck ever get sore? After a slight detour we made it to the camels. They were large, furry, and had a hump. Everything you’d expect from a camel. The camels were probably used to the heat but we were not so vanilla and chocolate soft serve was our next stop. We continued on past African Wild Dogs (they had puppies), Meerkats, and eventually Bighorn sheep. The sheep’s enclosure had a small rocky mountain in it, and we spied a fully-horned male jumping around near the top. There were also several lambs and their mothers wandering by at close range. The baby sheep made a good excuse to snack on some oranges, and then we moved on to a playground that had a sprinkler and a tunnel. Steven decided to take Vera in the tunnel and after getting a bit stuck they both made it out. At this point the boiling heat, lack of shade, and walking started to get to everyone so we made a hasty retreat to the car. One ten-minute trip later we were eating turkey wraps and then the ladies of the house turned in for a long nap while Steven did more reading and coffee drinking. Post-nap it was once again pool time while Steven did his run, and then after dinner we ended the night with a couple rounds of the card game Sushi Go and some glasses of wine.