Animal Ark in the Desert

First day in the Plaza Resort hotel, on the eighteenth floor, over looking the Truckee River.

That's our room on the top floor, on the left. I took this picture from the river walk.

This is the view from the 18th floor, looking south.

My son and I ate breakfast and headed north to the Animal Ark. This is a wildlife sancturary that shelters animals who do not have the skills to survive in the wild.
Animal Ark keeps several types of North American predators ,as well as a few exotic species. Most of the animals are considered "disadvantaged", meaning they may be orphaned, permanently disabled, or they may be confiscated or unwanted exotoc pets. In many cases, the animals would have been euthanized if a home at Animal Ark had not been found.
We drove north on highway 395 to Red Rock Rd and then east for about 11 miles into the desert to Deerlodge Rd.
We saw the sign.

I had been here once before. The Prospector and I came one day a few years ago, when we were mostly the only ones there. This time, there were lots of people and two bus loads of school children... and more animals.

The hills were covered with wildflowers.

And, in the distance I saw a "dome" house. Haven't seen one in a while.

This is the desert. It's quiet, beautiful in its own way and really what you would call "the wide open spaces".
I'm falling in love with this land. It's stark and wild. I would love to live through a winter here.
We paid our fee and started walking. It was rather warm.
 The first animal was a beautiful Asian tiger. His name is Shere Khan.

 He didn't like all the commotion...

So he walked away and sat down under a tree in the back of the compound.

Next were the Mountain Lions, who weren't any more excited about seeing us than the tiger.

This one gave us a couple of good shots and then...

"You can go now."
We looked for the other one and finally found it lying in the rocks under an old log.

He never opened his eyes. She lifted herself up with a huge paw, turned over on her back...

 And went back to sleep.

It was just too warm for entertaining the humans.
You can read about Milagro and Daniel here:
http://www.animalark.org/animals_felines-mountain-lion.html
 
The display at this observation platform had the skeletons of four different cats including a sabre tooth cat and I finally used the reflection of the glass (which was annoying for this photographer) to an advantage and took a photo of MYSELF AS A SABRA TOOTH CAT.

That's my son, on the left, with a little bobcat in his heart. I love the little scull.  Sometimes you have to go with the reflection and have some fun with it. Getting good shots through a window is very difficult because of the reflection, especially on a sunny day. I finally had Matt stand behind me on some shots so he could block the sun and the glare. It worked for the most part.  I thought this photo was fun. This is not the inner cat inside of me. I was a dog in my former life.

We saw a crazy badger who never stopped pacing around her compound. Her name is Beatrix.

I mean this little girl just ran, in circles, the whole time we were there. This is her story. This photo was caught with a fast camera speed. She was jumping from her house to the ground and I finally caught her clearly as she zoomed by.
Then we saw a raccoon, called Ringo,

Who was more interested in what was outside his fence than what was inside. He kept reaching through the fence and scratching the dirt for something. No one was around to ask. Bugs maybe?

Kaleb, a Canadian Lynx, was very interesting. A beautiful, dignified animal that never opened his eyes for us. I loved his profile.

He was in the zone and enjoying the warm weather.

There was something very ZEN about this animal.

The bobcats were both under a tree.They are Whiston and Piper. The came from private ownership which is never a good thing with wild animals.

One of them only lifted its head once and then went back to sleep. The other one ( top right) never stopped looking in one direction. He must have seen something beyond the fence. He never moved a muscle.

Then we came to the Black Bear's compound. They told us she had just eating and she was getting a little exercise. Well, this was fun to watch. She was playing tether ball, all by herself.

This is Gracie (a.k.a.- Booboo) She was having a good time... hitting the ball, grabbing it and swinging it around.

She could really snag that ball with those claws. No problem at all. 

 At some point she got tired playing in the heat and off she went...

to lie in the shade and rest from her activities. She was cute. She had a sweet face. But still... those are BIG claws.

I wouldn't want to win a game of Tether Ball with her and have her take offence.
We left BooBoo and moved on to a Barn Owl, which was back in a dark corner and I couldn't get a good photo through the enclosure.
But, the Desert Tortoise was out and about. His name is Peabody.

He was moving slowly from one place to another, as tortoises do. 

They are so prehistoric and interesting.

We saw a Jaguar that was moving around quite a bit but he was behind two fences and I didn't get very good shots of him. This was the best one.

I lifted my camera over the top of the first fence and hoped for the best. This is a most beautiful animal.
El Santo was donated to Animal Ark by Project Survival’s Cat Haven to help raise awareness of the plight of the jaguar. Originally, Santo was intended for another facility but they could not take him, so another home was sought. Project Survival is a non-profit organization that exists to support wild cat awareness, research, and conservation. The jaguar is the largest cat of the Americas.

TheCheetahs were nowhere to be seen and then someone said "Look!". They were down underneath the glass right below us. There, not a foot or two from us on the other side of the window, two of them were resting together. This was as close as I could get the camera to the window.

Please read about the Cheetahs, Zula and Shaka, here:
http://www.animalark.org/animals_felines-cheetah.html

There was a Great Horned Owl and some birds that didn't get their photos taken because one of the docents came by in her little wagon and said that the White Tiger was going to be fed and would we like a ride back to the tiger compound to see the event. We said "Yes!" and climbed aboard.

The keeper brought the food out into the main compound and set it up on a platform. A bird tried to snag a bite before the Tiger was released. He did get a piece of ground beef, but flew away quickly.

Kahn is a White Bengal Tiger. (Please read his story here:
http://www.animalark.org/animals_felines-white-tiger.html )
This is the most beautiful and powerful animal I have ever seen. I was overwhelmed.

Kahn loped out there on his massive paws and looked like a cat on a mission.

 He obviously knew the routine. He didn't stop to look in any direction other than that platform and the metal bowl on top of it.
He made one huge jump up and landed next to the bowl.

Got his balance.

And started eating.

The bird wasn't even waiting on the sidelines for leftovers. It was gone.

It was so interesting to watch this Tiger eat the chicken. Those powerful jaws were made for eating raw meat.

That chicken was devoured within a few minutes and then he went back to the bowl for dessert, finishing off the beef.

This animal was the most amazing of all. His majestic stature, his regal attitude and the chance to see such an awesome animal was truly the highlight of the day. I mean, how often do you see a White Bengal Tiger in the American West? Yes... I was walking on air.
The woman next to me said "Oh, I wish I could just go in there and touch that animal." We all laughed and so did she, but I kind of understood what she meant. 

We walked back to the gift shop where I bought a baseball hat with the Animal Art Logo on it and a couple of things for the Beans (my grandchildren).
We drove back out to the main road and I got a better photo of that "dome" home.

What a cool place to live.

We drove back to the highway and south to Reno. Clouds were moving in.

We had lunch and stopped at Sheel's, a sporting goods store, that has a Farris wheel INSIDE the store. It's an amazing place. You can spend hours there. I bought a pair of Keen open sandal type shoes that are good walking shoes with lots of support. Not only were they on sale but I got 20% off of the sale price. Now that's a deal.
Then we went back to the hotel, took a nap, cleaned up and walked to dinner.

A place called Campo's on the River Walk. Wonderful food. All local and organic.
The River was beautiful. There were lots of people walking around.

It was windy, but very mild. A very pleasant evening.
We decided to do some gambling. We didn't do very well. You have to cut your losses and leave when you're not winning. It was Tuesday night and my luck was not about winning jackpots... so I got kind of cranky. When I start talking to the machines, it's time to go home. I found my son and said I wanted to go back to the hotel. He wasn't doing that well either, but he asked me to play the pennies machines for a while. That didn't work either. So we finally left.
As we walked back, I took a picture of the famous Reno Arch.

 I loved seeing this gaudy, and sometimes seedy, town at night. It still has an element of excitement for me that it did when I was a child.
I needed to get some sleep because Wednesday we planned on driving over Mt. Rose to Lake Tahoe.

Where has Farmlady been?

The Prospector and I went on a real vacation.... TOGETHER. We went to the biggest little city in the world: Reno, Nevada. We left last Wednesday morning, entrusting our animals (and our two spoiled Corgis, Carl and Cutter.) to a seasoned house sitter that came highly recommended. The hardest part was leaving the dogs. But... feeling very guilty about it, we did.
Then we drove off into the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

It was cold, clear and beautiful. The photo in the middle, above, is Hope Valley. This is the junction for Luther Pass north into Lake Tahoe. We continued East down into Nevada's Great Basin and the Carson Valley....

...down into sagebrush country. I love the east side of the Sierras. It's so different than the west side. No foothills... well, none to speak of. The high mountains of the Sierras just drop right into the high desert. It's dramatic and beautiful. With the late winter weather this spring, there was a lot of snow on the mountains and made the views even more lovely.
We drove into Minden, where we had lunch and then got onto a bypass that took us into Carson City.

The new freeway has these wonderful metal renditions of  cowboys, sagebrush and pack mules travelling across the overpasses. What a great "out west" idea!
We drove on into Reno and went straight to the train station.

Our oldest son, "M", decided to join us for the weekend. He also decided to take the Amtrak train from Oakland because he had never been on a train before and wanted to have the experience going over the Sierras on the train.
The train arrive a little late but what excitement. Never having met a train, in person before, I was overwhelmed by it all. I remember, a long time ago, when I was a little girl, my parents would take us up to Reno. The tracks were street level then and we would run across quite a few tracks to reach the other side before a train came. Now, they have tunneled the train below the streets.
The Central Pacific Railroad (CPRR) started laying tracks in January of 1863. This was part of the track from Sacramento that ended in Promontory, Utah and formed the first transcontinental railroad. For more history on the railroad and the town of Reno, go to Wikipedia here. The Reno arch photo is courtesy of Wikipedia too. I didn't get a good picture of the arch so I borrowed one from Wiki'.
Then the train pulled into the station.

It was very noisy and exciting. The train came to a stop.

and the platform filled with people waiting for passengers and others coming on and off the train.

We found "M", gave him a hug, grabbed his small bag and went back into the station. He loved the trip and we decided, right then and there, that we would take a trip on the train soon. Our son highly recommended it.

This is the inside of the station. They retained the old building and some of the fountains and light posts of it's past splendor. The whole place was really quite beautiful.
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We drove to our hotel, The Plaza Resort, across town near the Truckee River. This was our first view from the room. The weather was cold and clear.

This is the 18th floor.... through the window.... you can't go out on the small balcony.... They have the sliding door bolted.... That was OK! None of us wanted to walk out there anyway. That's the Truckee River park area at Keystone Ave. down there.
"M" had a room right next door to us with a door in between. This worked out well. We were able to have our privacy at night but could eat together, make plans and visit with each other easily. This is a timeshare that belongs to my mother-in-law. It has a small kitchen area so we brought food for breakfast and lunch.
We all took a nap and later went to our favorite casino, the Cal Neva.  It's old vintage Reno. You see the real cowboys and ranchers in this casino and the odds seem better. Yea, hope springs eternal.
We have "history" here. I saved my mother in law's life in the Top Deck Restaurant here a few years back. She choked on a piece of steak and I was able to give her the Heimlich method to dislodge the piece of meat from her throat. I had just finished a lifesaving course at the school where I was working. The casino big wigs were impressed with my skill. I was just glad that I remembered what to do. So was my grateful MIL.
The story is told every time we have dinner there.
We had dinner and did a little gambling. I ALWAYS leave a "donation" on the roulette table. If I ever won a lot of money the shock would probably kill me before I could enjoy winning.. But, we have fun and there are always the slots. They even have 1 cent machines now. You don't use coins anymore though. The machines only takes bills now and gives you a voucher when you "cash out". It's easier to play. You don't have to pull the handle anymore on most of the slots but you loose your money faster. Also, and I'm sure you who have sat in front of a slot machine for hours on end, will remember how dirty your hands got from the coins. The fingers would be black by the end of the night. They are still addictive machines but you don't get black fingers anymore.The drinks are still free and you can still buy a snow globe with the Reno arch inside.

This is an amazing place and of course doesn't hold a candle to Las Vegas casinos, but I still love to come here once in a while. It's prettier than Vegas and smaller. It's very easy to get around town and has a lot of things to do besides gamble.
The next morning I took my camera down to the river and snapped some shots of the area around our hotel.
This is the view looking south from our room....

This is our room from the river...

Yep, that a long way up there, but it's kind of a tradition with my husband's family to get the same room when we come up here.
We are in good company here. That's the Methodist Church, one of the old originals in town. The Catholic Church, St. Thomas Aquinas, is just around the corner on Second St.
I love these old churches. The Methodist Church is beautiful and has birds nesting in the vines on the side of the building....

...Hundreds of bird that you can see coming and going inside this huge vine. The sound is wonderful! It's Spring after all. There were happy birds.
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The Truckee River walk is a happening place. The river walk is a great place to walk, jog, ride bikes, walk your dog and meet friends. It's so beautiful. The river splits into two right at Keystone Drive, where the Kayakers practice in the water on one side and some other people have picnics in the park area.  

The river is very high and swift right now but in the summer you can swim here. Every block has a road or walking bridge over the river, making both sides of town very accessible.

This is truly a beautiful river. I still have a problem with seeing a river run to the east instead of west. That always takes getting use to.

Looking East, from the walking bridge.

Tomorrow we will visit the University of Nevada and the McCay Museum of Mining.... and Scheels Sporting Goods Store.... unlike any sport store you can imagine.
I've got to break this up so I don't put you all to sleep.
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AND......

God bless all of those poor people in the south that got hit by the tornadoes. I cannot believe the destruction. It's hard to believe that these twisters can do that much damage. A prayer for all of you.