Pennies and predators

I got a much better sleep last night...no train horns blaring.  I had to battle a little Denver rush hour traffic this morning to make my tour at the United States Mint.  The guided tour was only 45 minutes long, but was well worth my time.  There was some history on the mint, and we could see coins being made below us on the production floor.

Afterward, I drove a short distance away to visit Voodoo Doughnut...the first shop to open away from Oregon.  The Portland creme doughnut was delicious!  I spent the rest of my very leisurely day at the Denver Zoo. The city should be very proud...they have a great zoo!  They have almost every animal you can think of at the Denver Zoo...and then some!  And, I got a lot of awesome photos.

Banded Mongoose

 Serval

 Amur Leopard

 Clouded Leopard (cub)

 Black and White Colobus Monkey, Gibbon

 Cheetah

 African Wild Dog

 South African Lion

I would have taken more photos, but my camera ran out of battery power.  And, I didn't bring my spare!  Oh, well.  It forced me to spend the rest of the afternoon actually LOOKING at the animals rather than concentrating on taking photos of them.  And, that was a good thing.  

When I got back to the car, my happy day took a negative turn.  I had bought a brand new window shade shortly after I got my new car.  It has a VERY reflective surface, which I guess is supposed to deflect the heat away from the windshield.  I should have known it would not be good for my windshield crack.  I removed the shade to find the crack had grown about 10 inches more!  Well, so much for my great window shade.  At least the crack is moving in a fairly straight line now, not that it makes any difference.  Well, tomorrow I leave Denver and start slowly heading back west.  More parks and it looks like rain again on the horizon.