Spiders and Snakes

November 21, 2011

I thought it would be fun to visit a new store that opened in town called Sierra Aquatics. I heard in an advertisement that they have a large selection of reptiles and fish. Sounds like a perfect adventure, right? Actually, I was a little disappointed when we pulled into the parking lot. The store was much smaller than I expected and there was only one other car in the lot. At first I thought it was closed, but it wasn't. We headed in and my disappointment soon turned to excitement (well, excitement might be too strong a word, let's say undisappointment, if that's a word).  The majority of the store contained supplies for exotic pet lovers and aquarium geeks. But, they also had a large selection of animals; snakes, frogs, lizards, tortoises, tarantulas, and scorpions (scorpions as pets? gross!). Almost all of the aquariums holding these animals were in one small, closet-sized room. There were two larger fish rooms, but both were in the middle of construction and not particularly safe to be walking into (so we looked from afar). They also had a few warm-blooded, fuzzy critters; chinchillas and of all things, a prairie dog (named Lily). I found out quickly that L is not a fan of snakes, she was okay with the tortoises, but she was immediately drawn to the chinchillas (she has one of her own named Sonic). The chinchillas were super cute! And the baby chinchilla was cuter than cute. One of the employees took Lily the prairie dog out of her cage for us to pet and now I can cross "Pet a Prairie Dog Named Lily" off of my bucket list. L asked for my phone so she could take pictures of some of the animals with the camera. As she held it over the pirate ship-shaped floor aquarium I had to remind her, "Please don't hold my phone over the water. Stand back a little." All I could see was my iPhone falling in and becoming an aquarium decoration for the whatever kind of shark was in there.

After our exotic animal adventure, we headed to Genghis Grill (our new fave) for dinner and a little yogurt at U-Swirl for dessert.

Until our next adventure . . .