Tim and I love animals. We've been kissed by dolphins, hugged koala bears and even petted stingrays. And then we go home and leave the animals where they belong...far away from us. This past weekend though, there was to be no escape.
It all started when we checked into a desert resort in Arizona. Instead of the rooms being attached to the main lodge, they were scattered throughout acres of desert in little clusters of four or five joined by long winding paths lined with every possible desert plant and animal imaginable.
Upon arrival, we were enchanted by the sight of dozens of cute, furry little jackrabbits hippity-hopping among the cacti. We thrilled to a pair of Gila monsters sunning themselves on a somewhat distant rock. We didn't even flinch when a random little lizard scurried across the path in front of us. Our room had huge sliding glass doors onto a balcony, all the better to view the desert set against the dramatic backdrop of a mountain of boulders.
It was perfect...until we stepped outside later that evening to hear the peaceful desert night shattered by the loudest, most ear-piercing screams I have ever heard. Concerned that someone was being murdered, we asked the staff if they shouldn't be calling 911 instead of standing around idly chatting with guests. They assured us it was nothing to worry about, just the resident owl on his nightly quest for a duck dinner. He had already eaten eighteen of the twenty on the grounds and was gunning for the other two. Ewwww. Looking up, we saw the huge behemoth in question perched atop one of the boulders (living proof that duck is not a low-calorie meal). Great. That sound ought to soothe us to sleep. Turns out, he was only the opening act.
At approximately 5:30 am, we were woken up by what sounded like a small rhino scuttling back and forth across our roof. This continued for several moments until a sudden period of silence which was then followed by something even bigger tip-tapping its way back and forth. We weren't sure if Mr. Tip-tap scared off the first fellow or ate him, but we were afraid to go out on our balcony and look up. Our main concern at that point was whether the ceiling beams would hold.
About this time, every bird in the southwest woke up and visited the resort to compete in the all-aviary version of American Idol. They each tried to out-chirp, out-sing and out-squawk each other all at the same time.
Giving up hope of ever sleeping again in the near future, we decided to have breakfast. Tim sensibly opted to eat his in the more civilized way...sitting on a comfy leather chair in front of the TV. I, on the other hand, seemed to have lost my mind and decided to have mine on our balcony (I was really hoping whatever horrific creature had been terrorizing us earlier did not suffer the light of day gladly).
I had just finished my lovely fruit and yogurt plate and was reaching for the silver lid to put back on the plate (some of those noisy little birds looked kinda hungry) when suddenly, out of nowhere, an enormous cardinal came swooping in to land in my yogurt and finish my slice of date bread. Lifting the lid like a shield to protect myself from this clearly deranged and possibly dangerous wild animal, I yelled for Tim while the cardinal hoovered the bread into himself all the while having the nerve to scold me at the top of his lungs for not leaving some of the banana bread as well. (FYI, he did not respond to "shoo", "get", or "go away", and he looked really mean, or ticked off.)
Tim, of course, safe and secure inside was not about to come to my rescue. This apparently was better than watching Jack Hanna getting peed on by some kind of giant rodent on the Tonight Show.
Eventually, the bird had his fill and I was able to escape back into the safety of our room and berate Tim for his failure to ride his white horse to my rescue.
Ah, but I did manage to get the last laugh though when Tin had a close encounter of his own on the golf course.
While on the eighth hole, he hit his ball into a gully near an area of dense desert "forest". Going down to take his shot, he apparently came a bit too close to where a family of wild pigs had set up housekeeping. Believing Tim was a threat to his new little baby, the very large, very angry daddy Havalina let out an ear-splitting shriek and charged out of the underbrush.
Seeing this prehistoric-looking pig barrelling toward him, Tim made the split second decision to abandon his ball and scrambled up out of that gully with all the speed and agility of a racehorse in the final stretch at the Kentucky Derby.
Fortunately for him, the pig abandoned the chase, but the next morning when we were again awakened by a cacophony of assorted wild animal calls, we looked out our window and there, right off our balcony, was an entire herd of the Havalinas.
I don't know how they found him, but we got the message. We packed our bags and took the first plane out of town back to the city where it is quiet.
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