Hey y’all - it’s Gillian!! After deciding there was a complete lack of any kind of mention of my name, I have taken over the blog :) So buckle up and get ready for what may possibly be the best blog post of the summer.
The day started at 4:00 in the morning central time. Both of the cats were very confused as to why I was getting out of bed a mere four and half hours after going to sleep, but their worries were smoothed as I set out their food for the day. I gathered the last few odds and ends before setting off to the airport.
A fairly uneventful tale from Nashville into Phoenix, but I was not prepared for the absolute wall of heat that my mother so dutifully described in her previous writings. Heat aside, I was happy to be greeted by the smiling face of my father, who had left the RV at 6:00am mountain time in order to get me from Phoenix at 8. The drive back served to be the perfect staging ground for conversations of traffic, taxes, and the saguaro cacti that can be found between Phoenix and Flagstaff.
Now those cacti are just absolutely massive, no other way to put it. They grow incredibly slowly, taking eight years to achieve the first 1-1.5 inches. To counter that, the cacti can live between 150 and 175 years.
My journey eventually led me to reunite with the rest of my family on the western half of the country. And thus, we set forth on the adventure for the day.
Our first official stop – some of us had traveled cross country at this point, but it’s not a competition - was the Raptor Ranch and Bedrock Amusement park. Amusement park may have been a generous term for an attraction that was at one point based on the Flintstone’s, but it was fun to poke through the buildings, nevertheless. We were able to visit Fred and Barney’s houses, stop by the grocery store, and Audrey and I even got into some trouble with the local police.
The Bedrock Amusement park also serves as the Raptor ranch, which houses a total of twenty-two birds of prey. There was some time between exploring Bedrock and the show, so Ryan and my father felt the best course of action was to start throwing rocks at me. It only got worse when one such rock balanced on my leg, and both of them decided that they had to be the one to hit it off with yet another projectile. Thank goodness they finally succeeded because I couldn’t take any more tiny scrapes. That and it was time for the raptor show to begin.
We were able to watch one of the harris’s hawks, Justin, do a few laps back and forth from handler to perch. Audrey and Dad only had a total of three wings to the face between the both of them. We chatted with the hander for a while about her journey through falconry as well as our own experiences, and then it was on to the second show! This time we were able to watch as Hawkeye chased a mechanical rabbit, although it was cut short due to technical difficulties – as a theater kid, I wholeheartedly understand.
And with that, it was time for us to leave the Stone Age behind. During the drive to our next destination, Ryan, Audrey, and I engaged in a multitude of fun car games. We had a flicking war that Ryan won, we played ‘squeeze the cheese’ that Audrey decidedly lost, and Ryan and I sang a rousing duet of Ironic by Alanis Morissette. A truly memorable thirty minutes.
We arrived at the next leg of our daily adventure – Bearizona. This wildlife park housed two experiences, a drive thru portion of the park and a walk thru portion of the park. We drove through twice, getting plenty of photo and video of rocky mountain goats, several types of deer, wolves, bison, and – of course – bears.
Fun fact! The animals in the drive thru do not care if you are in their way. They will cross the road and your car needs to vacate their pathway. Ryan almost got kissed a couple times by deer as we learned that lesson.
Once done with our second drive thru, we ditched the electric transportation in favor of the tried-and-true acoustic nature of the walk thru portion of the park. By doing this, we were able to add beavers, porcupines, raccoons, badgers, foxes, javelina, otters, jaguars, elk, and even more bears to our sightseeing for the day. And a peacock, but it seemed very perturbed by our presence.
A swing through the gift shop and dinner to-go, and we headed back to free Adventure Dog from his solitude. As always, he was most excited to see his mother. We finished up the day with a relaxing dinner back in the home-on-wheels and Ryan and I went out for some scorpion hunting. Nothing at this stop, but we are hopeful about our prospects in New Mexico.
A fun day in the Arizona heat, but I am grateful that I was able to join the rest of my family – except Elizabeth – for the latter portion of the annual migration. More adventures to come as always, and tomorrow the blog shall be returned to the usual incredible writing talents of Greg and Melissa.
Until then,
Gillian ‘I want a nickname here’ Flatt
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