Thanksgiving vacation, part 2

Because J, A, and the kids had work and school until Wednesday afternoon, G, Madre, Padre, and I decided to go to Naples for a couple of days. We left on Monday morning and drove to the Corkscrew Bird Sanctuary, which is just outside of Naples.

The sanctuary wasn't as birdtacular as it had been on previous visits, according to Padre, but it was still pretty cool. Here are a couple of pictures, courtesy of Padre (mouse over for identification and/or comments).

By the way, does anyone know how to get rid of those white borders on Photobucket? I don't mind the smaller ones so much, but the big ones are effin' annoying!











On Tuesday, we went to the Naples Zoo, which was really terrific. It was a fairly small zoo, but we were there for almost 6 hours! They had a lagoon with several different islands, and you could take a boat cruise around to look at the animals. They were all primates, including gibbons, spider monkeys, and G's beloved lemurs.










But there were other animals to gawk at, too:










But by far, the highlight of the zoo for me was a show where the trainers brought out several different animals and talked about them, including this gorgeous girl:





And a sloth: my third favorite animal and second favorite deadly sin!





Afterwards, they let you come up and ask questions or pose next to (or in the vicinity of; needless to say, nobody was allowed to get close to the ocelot) the animals. Of course, I wanted to get a picture with the sloth, and...

...and...

EEEEEEEEEEEEEE THE KEEPER LET ME PET THE SLOTH!

I think he might have done so because he thought I was mentally challenged, considering the look of manic glee on my face, but I don't give a shit because I got to PET THE SLOTH. Ever so gently, I petted the sloth's back, and she was surprisingly soft. She felt like a shaggy dog!

I've censored this picture because, in my pure joy, I look like the sister of the banjo-playing kid in Deliverance, but here's me and the sloth post-petting:





Afterwards, I said, "I went to Costa Rica to see sloths, but it turns out I had to go to Florida to actually touch one!" Truly awesome, and I got to check that off my bucket list.

When we left the zoo, we went to downtown Naples for dinner and I peeked in a clothing store that, according to our guidebook, had two store kitties. I only saw one: a white Persian with a lion cut. He was a bit grumpy, but tolerated some brief petting before sashaying away. Then we had dinner at a place called Yabba. The hostess was kind of bitchy, but the food was worth it. I had a particularly good burger and fries, and G and I split a slice of key lime pie with tequila-infused blueberry sauce and vanilla chantilly whipped cream. Y to the mothereffin' UM!

Back at the hotel, G and I wanted to use the whirlpool that the guest services binder promised us. We didn't find it, but we did find this:





They turned the whirlpool into a cactus garden. But hey, at least they left the "NO DIVING" sign!