Friday, February 3, 2012

Linked 52: Sleep...

I no longer have cute, darling little kids to take sleeping photos of, (they're the absolute best!)
I have two cats and a dog that can be cute and darling when they sleep, but I didn't really want to use them for this project.
I have a husband that sleeps..All.The.Time, but he sometimes reads my blog and I didn't think he would appreciate me showing a photo of him sleeping...it's not really cute or darling. (sorry sweetie)

Soooo, I took a trip to the MN Zoo to try and get a great, good, okay, decent photo of the Grizzly Bears sleeping (hibernating). It seemed like a really good idea, until I got there and noticed they were sleeping in a big clot. A clot of grizzlies, Big, furry, grizzlies.























Well, as you can see, it's hard to tell there is even a face there, and the glass (on their side) was filthy from their slobber and who knows what else, so I had to try and dodge the slime marks and focus in a relatively clean area, which wasn't working and they all kind of blended together, and there was no focal point, and my idea was squashed, if I couldn't get a decent photo of grizzly bears sleeping, I had to think of something else. I continued to wander the zoo and was able to get some pretty good photos of other animals that I posted yesterday (if you want to take a look) then decided I'd had enough and should probably head on home and try to beat the rush hour traffic. On my way out, I had to walk past the grizzly exhibit and thought I'd try one more time to hopefully get a decent photo of those sleeping bears.

WELL, Did you know, bears (of any kind) that hibernate can be woke up??
They don't really sleep the entire winter.
They don't really sleep the sleep of the dead.
They just sleep...a lot!!

This is what I found when I stopped by a second time to get a photo of sleeping grizzlies.


They were awake and having fun. They were supposed to be aSLEEP.

They were moving pretty fast for bears that were sleeping just 1/2 hour ago, and I've seen how fast they can move when it isn't "sleep" time, so I really believe that if I came across a grizzly (actually any bear would do) out in the wild, I wouldn't have to worry about needing to "play dead" if it decided I was a threat and came after me, because I would die of fear first! They are very large animals and very beautiful and very playful. They are my favorite exhibit to visit, followed very closely by the tigers, bird show and gibbons.
If any of you every come to Minnesota, please set aside a day and visit the MN Zoo, you won't regret it.
Maybe my daughter could show you around because I Believe she will someday be a MN Zoo zookeeper.

Be sure to click on Linked 52 on the top bar to see all of the other talent and their interpretation of Sleep.

8 comments:

Amanda Kelley said...

Love the bears! My son is sitting next to me as I read this post---he says, "Grrr and Rrrar" They are too cute!

Naomi said...

Love these shots! We LOVE the bears too, so fun to watch them. You're lucky you caught them awake! We usually catch them sleeping! ha!

Just Rhonda said...

bears are coool!!!! :)

Amanda said...

The bears are our favorite at the zoo, too. :) I love how easy they made it to get nose-to-nose with those beautiful animals.

Heather M. said...

what a great idea for this week's post!

Andrea said...

I always thought they slept all winter, too. Fun to see them playing! I like the first photo, bear all cuddled up in a ball or sorts. All of that fuzzy fur makes me want to curl-up in a ball in my bed (which I've not seen much of lately) and just sleep the day away. :)

Heidi said...

I also wanted to take a picture of my hubby sleeping on the couch, but he wasn't keen on that idea. So luckily I still have 4 kiddos for my subjects. Going to the zoo was a great idea! Wish we had one here to visit.

sara said...

great idea to go to the zoo!
wonderful shots.
we had bears in our campsite last year.
not cool
:)