Cats and a Lake!

Finally have some good photos for you regarding my stay in Kanab, UT. I have been staying in Kanab all this week while volunteering at the BEST FRIENDS Animal Sanctuary. It's been wonderful. I work in the mornings in the "houses" of cats. Each "room" has an inside and an outside so the cats can come and go depending on what they want to do. The rooms have toys and cubbies and furniture and most of the rooms (the outside parts, at least) have open rafters and climbing shelves all over the walls (on the inside). There are 2 to 6 "rooms" in each of the "houses" and there are at least 7 "houses"!

The photos are of one of the rooms at "Vinnies Place", one of the houses. The cat is Stalker (aka "Talker") because he likes to talk a lot, as you can see. (I'm getting better at this photo loading thing, huh?)

Volunteers can do anything from helping to clean rooms, to taking cats for walks (that is not a typo) to just spending time with the critters, "socializing". I usually spent the mornings cleaning rooms, helping with laundry and dish washing, and spent the afternoons walking and socializing. The problem with socializing is that you (meaning I) fall in love, almost on a daily basis! They have different houses for regular cats (friendly and not so friendly), houses for cats with FIV (feline HIV) and with feline leukemia, cats that have just arrived and have to be tested or treated for illnesses and/or injuries, and a house for cats that are brought in just because they've been caught in the wild and need to be spayed/neutered - these are nursed back to health and then re-released. All the other are up for adoption, so COME ON DOWN!!!

Last Sunday we (Sue, Antwan and I) went to Page, AZ, the home of Lake Powell and the dam who's name now escapes me - sorry, dam. Between the dam, the canyons and the amazing colors of the rocks formed by millions of years of changes in water levels (and God's handiwork) you can find yourself staring at just walls, basically, of rocks and out croppings. We were able to climb out on one of the sides of the canyon and capture some of the layers that are really fascinating.

Gnarly, huh??? 

We have a little townhouse in Kanab, about 5 miles from the sanctuary. Antwan works with the dogs every morning and afternoon, and Sue works with dogs in the mornings and then with cats (and me) in the afternoons. I HAVE to come back here and try volunteering with the birds, horses, bunnies and pot-bellied pigs next time. AND the CATS of course! We're bone tired at the end of the day and I cook dinner for us each night, which I also love to do. After an after-dinner walk around the local canyon, we pretty much crash for the evening.

We're finished tomorrow evening (Friday) and I'm going to miss this place and a few of my favorites: Fuzzy; Stalker; Elwood; Andrew; and especially Brighton my favorite. I spend a couple of hours every afternoon with Brighton.

We're going to the north end of the Grand Canyon on Saturday and I'll have some photos of that soon after, along with one (or more) of Brighton!

Thanks for tuning in - let me know if there's anything more I can do to make this entertaining.