Big Kitties

This afternoon my parents and I visited Carnivore Preservation Trust (CPT) for a tour of the compound. It's out in Pittsboro, about a 20 minute drive from where I live. CPT is a sanctuary mostly for large cats but they have binturongs and kinkajous as well. Naturally I took a zillion photos, which you can see at my Flickr site. I'll post just a few of them here.

I must admit I did not find our tour guide to be particularly knowledgeable or engaging, however most would probably say I'm being too hard on her. She said that baby tigers are 2-3 ounces at birth, when it's actually 2-3 pounds, and she kept saying that the tigers were "chuffling," when the correct term is "chuffing." Granted, I used to volunteer at the Wildlife Waystation in Southern California, which could explain some of my superciliousness. I will say that overall I was satisfied, because of course the main attraction was the cats and they did not disappoint. We saw servals, ocelots, caracals, leopards, and tigers. The snow leopard was hiding up on a platform in his enclosure and the binturong was in his little house, so we didn't get a good view of them. Also, the white tiger was not in the mood for visitors so we only saw him from afar. But with the others we got to be pretty close.




Great new restaurant. For dinner tonight we went to Carrabas here in Apex and I was thorougly impressed. Both the food and the service were excellent. I had the Chicken Bryan, which came with goat cheese, sundried tomatoes, and a lemon basil sauce. To. Die. For. I was literally giddy after my first bite, it tasted so good. The garlic mashed potatoes were also deelish, and the bread was perfection. Two thumbs way, way up. To top it all off, on our way out, an elderly gentleman shook each of our hands and bid us "Arrivederci!"

Postcard swap update. So my postcard swap is pretty much complete. I sent my cards out Thursday, and I've received cards from four of the six other participants. None of them arrived on the same day so it's been fun to check the mail and have my treats spread out. Most people forgot to take pictures before they mailed the cards, so I decided to just post photos of the ones I receive and the ones I sent. Mine were all slightly different but using the same materials and motif.

Sent

Received

Thank you to all the kind and crafty souls who participated. It is amazing to me how differently the theme of "Transitions" or "Spring" was manifested in everyone's creations. If you enjoyed yourself, I hope you'll consider participating in my next postcard swap, which will come around in July. The theme will probably something like "Old Glory." (Thanks for the suggestion, Nicole!) I'm also considering doing a store-bought postcard swap, for the non-crafty folks, which could be seen as a travel-by-mail and/or geography project. Any interest out there?