Lions and Tigers and Ligers, oh my!

Day 7


We covered lot of territory today - from the Soledad Canyon to Hollywood Blvd! The main event was our tour of the Shambala Preserve. It's this amazing, unique place founded and managed by actress Tippi Hedren - she even lives there! - and they have tours for a small number of the public one weekend every month. It was about an hour inland in the middle of a canyon. The only way in and out was via a long, winding road that Darrell couldn't help but take a little faster than my stomach liked. He likes to pretend he's driving a motorcycle, you know, even if he's actually driving a car. We arrived safely, but with my breakfast feeling a little unsettled.


We had to sign our life away - literally, if a tiger ate us it was our own fault - wait around for a while, then trek around in the heat. But it was worth it! The rules were simple: don't crouch down and look small and stay 4 ft. back from the cage. We got up close and personal with 20-30 big cats, including tigers, lions, a leopard and a hybrid called a Liger (Father was a lion, mother was a tiger. This doesn't happen in nature, ever, they're man-made).

We watched the cranky, cranky leopard prowl around her cage just itching to get her paws on us...



..and we learned all their horror stories, like the one of the big lion below playfully rolling around on his back looking for a belly rub. He was a drug dealer's "guard dog", charged with watching over and protecting the stash.


We took a ton of pics and videos and capped it all off with the purchase of a beautiful photo of two of the cats who slept through our visit: Thriller and Sabu, formerly part of Michael Jackson's Neverland zoo. The volunteer who sold it to us asked where we were from, then noted she had never been there and knew nothing about it. We thought for sure the "Do you live in an igloo?" question was coming, but it didn't. Instead, she asked one we haven't heard before: "Are you permanent?" Yes, we said kindly, and left it at that. What we wanted to say was, "Yes lady, we're Canadian. We were born somewhere other than the United States."
That night, it was off to Hollywood! We took it all in: the Kodak Theatre, the Chinese Mann theatre, the street performers, and the Disney Soda Shoppe.

Darrell even found his star on the Walk of Fame, how delightful!

We passed on taking our photo with the Michael Jackson look-a-like, buying a cheap-looking Academy Award replica, and no thank you, I do not want to know my body fat percentage, especially while on vacation, even if it's free.

Rather than spend the entire night with the ghouls and fools of Hollywood Blvd, we spent an hour or two enjoying some comforts of home: Ruffles, beer, hockey and Jenga. We even set a new personal best: 34 stories. Legend has it that experts can reach 36 stories, but we have yet to accomplish such a feat.