The Zoo!

Last week I went to the zoo with my friend Nicole. Our other friend Jaki is actually painting faces at the zoo for the summer, so she also joined us for a bit. I haven't been to the zoo in a LOOOOONG time and I was worried I wouldn't like it as much as I used to, that it was more for kids or something, but we had an awesome time. Also, if you are a fan of the elephants, as I am, go now because they're not going to be in Philly much longer (if they're even there now). They're scheduled to leave for other zoos this month because they are too expensive to keep here any more. Sad. I was happy to hear that they're at least staying together though.



Nicole and Jaki...



the cats...







the monkey guys. Okay, I read Life of Pi where they go on all about how animals in zoos are happier or whatever and I just don't know. Whenever I get to the monkeys I have trouble believing this. Look at these guys? :-( They have such sad little faces and they just look like they want to be out there playing. In defence of the zoo though, it's possible that these monkeys did have an outdoor enclosure too, I can't remember.





lemur guy looking all funny...



Nicole protested going in the petting zoo...but I think it was the best part. We pet sheep and goats and cows. Jaki said if I came back as a cow I would have looked like one of them. Not sure how to take that... :-)



This is the zoo tender guy yelling at one of the jersey cows in the petting zoo. hehe. See how ashamed she looks? She'd pushed her little red ball which they have for enrichment in between the rungs of the fence. Then when the other cow wanted to play with it she couldn't cause it was stuck. (This isn't the cow that looked like me btw)



Last but not least Nicole and Jaki got to ride the tractor...fun. :-)

Grounds for Sculpture

Last week was Mikey's birthday, so on Saturday I decided to take him to Grounds for Sculpture which is right in Hamilton, NJ for part of his birthday celebration. Since Mikey is a sculptor I thought it would be perfect. Neither of us had ever been there, but we both had heard how awesome it is. It's just this big outdoor scupture garden with over 240 contemporary sculptures. You can check out the website at www.groundsforsculpture.org. Here are some of my favorite photos from Saturday, although it was really hard to pick just these. I'll have to upload more into a slideshow. It was just so beautiful there!

All the sculptures are just perfectly placed within the serene landscape of the grounds. They just fit right in.



Oh and there are also free-roaming peacocks.

This was one of my favorites. Pegasus. I really love the organic shapes.

Some of the sculptures recreate famous paintings so you feel like you are right inside of a work of art.

This is us being excited that we are inside a work of art.

There were also ducks! I love ducks.

Below is another one of my favorites. It looks like an elephant head to me, with the big trunk in front.

This is Mikey sticking his head in the line of the shot I was trying to get above.

There is also a restaurant just nestled in the beautiful scenery. We didn't eat there, but we're going to next time. It's supposed to be really good.

Becky

On Tuesday I drove into the city to do some photos with Becky. Yay! Becky is an old pro at the modeling. She was my very first photography model for my very first photography class in school. :-) And also my model for like every other photo project after that. Fun times! So yeah, so when I got there Becky was telling me about this really beautiful historic cemetery right near where she lives, and since she knows I love that sort of stuff, we decided to check it out. It really is gorgeous! So gorgeous in fact that Becky said if being a veterinarian doesn't work out, she would like to be one of the groundskeepers there. So we just walked around and I took a few shots. Here are some of my favorite ones.

Then we got into photoshooting mode and did some photos around West Philly. Here are some of pretty Becky and city scenery.

We eventually took the trolley down to 30th Street Station for some photos, but spent more time talking to Officer Reutter (below). He approached us (actually snuck up on us to try to scare us) while I was shooting, and at first I thought he was going to tell us we couldn't take photos in there, but it turned out that he just wanted to chat. He was a really cool guy, and he's a published poet!

Philadelphia

Did you ever notice that when you live somewhere, you barely see anything until someone comes to visit from out of town? Well, people came to visit this weekend. Specifically, Jason's friends came from Boston and they'd never really seen Philly. Fun! So they did a lot of things that people who've never been to Philly like to do.

People like to run up the Art Museum steps like Rocky. Jason lives close to the Art Museum, so it was first on the list. We didn't actually see anything in the museum itself though...just the steps.





In front of the Museum, the group Mothers United Through Tragedy, Inc. had set up a memorial for the 406 murder victims who died in Philadelphia in 2006. If you don't know, the murder rate in Philadelphia is a huge problem right now. Mothers United Through Tragedy is a non-profit group of family members who have lost loved ones. Many of these family members had turned out for this event. To read more about the rise in Philly's murder rate, you can read this article from USAToday, December 2006.









After we left the Art Museum we headed up to the Eastern State Penitentiary. It's no longer an active prison and it's actually a beautiful building. The tour was also v. interesting and not too long if you get a chance to check it out. They apparently have an "alumni" weekend each year which we missed by one day. Guards AND prisoners who were at the prison at some point come back to catch up and share their Eastern State stories. They say that many of the prisoners still have a soft spot for this place. Crazy.









I'm not certain what this art installation represents, but I thought it was interesting. You can read more about it here.





It was a fun visit and I was sorry I had to leave early and miss the horse drawn carriage portion. :-( (Although, I did enjoy helping Amy celebrate her B-day with hibachi deliciousness.)