Animals Of the Vacation

We saw many animals on vacation, some wild and some caged. This post will begin with the Best Animal of the Grand Canyon, and end with the Best Animal of Vegas.

Grand Canyon

The Best

While at Mather Point (aka Point of Death) on the last day, I noticed a group of people in a circle taking photos of a squirrel. Now, I know there are entire nations to whom a squirrel isn’t a tree rat. But what was exceptional about this guy was a) the crowd was mere inches from him and b) he appeared to be begging like a dog. Or like a busker.

We all applauded as Busker the Squirrel dragged a green apple the size of his torso into a crevice under some steps.

About ten minutes later Gary and I sat down on a rock by those steps, and Busker popped out.

Busker sized up the pair of us and decided Gary was the soft touch. Gary took this photo before Busker started playing him.

During his first sortie, Busker hopped right up to Gary’s thigh, then cut around behind him. I was sitting on Gary’s right, so now Busker was at my side. He came up and put his little clawed paw on my thigh.

I did not make eye contact. “Oh I don’t think so,” I said. I knew we were being watched by the crowd, so I played it cool.

Busker circled back to Gary, and leapt on to his thigh, jumped off, then peered at Gary.

“Sorry, dude,” Gary said. “I have no food.”

Busker ran off in front of us, then amazed the crowd by running back to Gary and climbing all the way up INTO HIS LAP. He flicked his tail in the air and walked daintly across Gary.

“Did you see that!” I heard someone in the crowd say. “That squirrel just walked right over that guy.”

Yeah. That’s an attention whore squirrel right there.

The Others

Elk greeted us at the Grand Canyon. They lose their horns in the spring, so they were only distinguishable from deer by their shaggy necks.

The elk and deer swarmed the Mather campground. These deer refused to let any humans use their Drinking Water. They got affronted if anyone in an RV tried to get some.

And of course there were the mules of the Bright Angel trail.

Ravens are bastards. This guy was having a feast in the trash bin.

There were even more animals an hour outside the Grand Canyon at the marvelously named Bearizona.

There were of course bears.

There were wolves who acted like puppies and chased our car.

There were goats who knew what we were up to.

I had a moment when this animal approached our car.

Those were the animals of the Grand Canyon. Las Vegas had far fewer animals.

Las Vegas

The Others

Our hotel was Mandelay Bay, and in harmony with the bay theme they have a shark exhibit.

Gary saw this on the floor of our room and at first thou
ght it was an animal:

And naturally, we had to see the white tigers at Siegfried and Roy’s Secret Garden.

That’s not the late Montecore, the one who either a) mauled Roy or b) did Roy a favor by dragging him offstage after he collapsed. Montecore met his maker in March. Roy (Montecore apologist) is too disabled now to do anything more than charity appearances.

However …

The Best

We got to see a Siegfried in the wild!

He was out and about, pulling quarters out of kids forearms, as you do. I couldn’t say what I wanted to him (“TELL ME ALL YOUR SECRETS”), so I instead pretended he was my host and murmured, “This is lovely. Thank you.” I got a polite nod. He did not crawl into my lap and beg for food but it was still pretty amazing.