A Day at the Zoo

Well, we're coming to the end of our time at Lebanon Hills. It's been a very nice stay. In spite of the rain and the mosquitoes.

We are camped in the blue circle.

Yesterday Mark took a short day (for lack of work) and we went to the Minnesota Zoo, which is only about a mile from our campground. Actually, as the crow flies, it's just across the street. But since we're not crows, we took the car.

It was a beautiful day for walking-- breezy and not too hot. The Minnesota zoo has no elephants, no zebras, no giraffes, and no lions. But it does have plenty of monkeys, bears, and local animals, such as wolves, bison, and moose. And one tiger. It took us about three hours to see all the exhibits. Then it was off to Dolittle's for supper (the price paid for forgetting to take meat out of the freezer). Excellent food, by the way.

Our transition from house-living to motorhome-living is still ongoing. This week we purchased a new mattress for our bed. We've become accustomed to sleeping on a Tempurpedic mattress, so the very, VERY firm mattress we inherited with the RV is just not hacking it. The mattress we bought to replace it is not a Tempurpedic brand, but we're hoping it will be close enough to give us a comfortable night's rest. After a little bit of research, we decided on a Mattress America brand "cool gel" foam mattress. It contains no harmful chemicals and comes with a lifetime warranty. The only problem is that this mattress, which came in a very manageable box, takes 48 hours to decompress into its proper shape. So we can't just throw it on the bed and call it good. Consequently, we'll be navigating around an expanding mattress for a couple days while we allow it to do its thing.

The other item we purchased this week was a portable vacuum cleaner to replace the giant, cumbersome Hoover we got rid of when we moved. Again, after some research (always research first!) I decided on a Deik brand for a couple reasons. It's lightweight, easy to transition from upright to hand vacuum, it has a HEPA filter to trap dust, and it takes very little space to store. It does a great job on both carpet and hard floor. (You can click on the link to see what it looks like.)

Things are beginning to shape up.

That's all for now. For you fellow zoo-lovers out there, here are some photos of the day...