I got off early today and my son, his friend Ryan and my daughter came by to pick me up, and we drove out to the WNC Nature Center in East Asheville (Oteen). Four of us; four cameras popping. The day was a bit cool but otherwise perfect, and the animals had just woken up from their daytime meal and were just beginning to become active (though the cougars still seemed a bit lazy).

I took a lot of pictures, and they are in no particular order because there are just so many. So I just peppered them throughout this post. I haven’t given them captions either. I also included some photos ofmy daughter, son, myself and Ryan. The “prism” photos of my daughter and me were a total accident–I’m not sure how that happened but they are cool so I’m posting them.

CLICK ON PHOTOS TO SEE FULL SIZE

We wanted to see the snake and reptile house too, but they were closed for renovations. We probably spent a good two hours there. We saw all sorts of animals indigenous to this area–otters (pretty much everyone’s favorite), giant turtles, birds of prey (I got photos of the owls), wolves (they were still sleeping and are hard to see because of their camouflage), coyotes (one came right up to the fence), foxes (they were very hard to see and too far away to get good photos), cougars (the adorable male and female pair was cuddled up together), and of course the petting zoo animals (goats and donkeys). We also saw deer and a caterpillar web. I got a pretty good closeup of that. I wanted to see the black bears in action but they seemed to be AWOL today.

We spent about two hours at the Nature Center, and then we all went to eat at O’Charley’s. My son’s friend Casey joined us. I don’t think I’ve ever been so hungry in my life. After our early dinner, we caught the 7 PM showing of Zootopia. I’m finally home, and exhausted, but in a good way. Tomorrow’s his last day here. We haven’t decided what we’re doing yet but it will probably be a less active day.