Fuzzy Goes to Las Vegas

Hi Kids,
Miss Elaine, Mr. Jack and I went to Las Vegas, Nevada. Once it was just a dry spot in the desert then some people decided it would make a great resort. They built some hotels and put up fancy signs. Some had glass tube lights called neon lighting. It took a lot of skill to bend the glass into different shapes. See all the tubing on the duck sign? At night it would be really bright and pretty.

Now a lot of the old signs have been retired and collected in an outdoor museum. The neon signs were very expensive and difficult to make so pretty soon people decided to just use lots of light bulbs instead.

The museum is like an old attic with all sorts of signs stacked up. The big silver lamp came from the Aladdin Hotel. Do you know the story about Aladdin and his magic lamp? The pointy shapes came from the Stardust Hotel. I really liked seeing the old signs. Some of the old signs are displayed around town. They are very pretty at night.

We stayed in the old part of Las Vegas. There are a lot more hotels and things to do in other parts of the town but we wanted to see where the city started. Fremont Street was the main street. Now it has been turned into a pedestrian mall. Pedestrian means for walkers instead of cars. There are lots of bright lights here.

Several blocks of the street have a sort of roof over them. You can see videos on the ceiling. We were there at Halloween so they had scary pictures up there!

The ceiling is really high and there are zip lines so people can slide from one end to the other. Can you see the people zipping overhead?

There are lots of things for grown-ups to do in Las Vegas but we found some cool things for kids, too. This giant bug is outside of a shopping/entertainment area called Container Park.

In the park the shops are all made out of stacked shipping containers. My favorite part was the playground in the middle.

I really laughed at the giant bug -- kind of like a praying mantis. There was a man inside and when someone would walk down the sidewalk the man would turn on the antennas. They made a loud roar. Everybody jumped then laughed at the surprise.

Love,
Fuzzy






 

Fuzzy Visits the Presidents

Hi Kids,

You just had a school holiday! It was called Presidents Day. Did you know that it was originally celebrated every February 22. That was George Washington's Birthday. The observance began in 1800, the year after President Washington died. It was because he was so important to our country and everybody wanted to honor him. Years later, Congress decided it would be nice if workers had more three-day weekends so they moved several national holidays to Mondays. George Washington's Day was one of them. Since it wasn't on his birthday anymore, they changed the name to Presidents Day.

In the 1920s, the South Dakota State Historian, Doane Robinson, decided it would be nice to have a giant monument to heroes of the West. He contacted sculptor Gutzon Borglum who said he would do it but suggested national heroes instead of figures from a smaller area.

Borglum chose four Presidents -- George Washington, because he fought for American independence and was our first president; Thomas Jefferson, because he wrote the Declaration of Independence and he expanded American territory through the Louisiana Purchase; Abraham Lincoln, because he freed the slaves and saved the Union and Theodore Roosevelt, because of his leadership in business and conservation and in building the Panama Canal. President Roosevelt is my favorite because Teddy bears are named after him!

It took 400 workers 14 years to finish. And it took a lot of dynamite to create the figures on Mount Rushmore. These heads are REALLY big. Each of George Washington's eyes is 11 feet wide. His nose is 21 feet long. He mouth is 18 feet wide. Could you measure how big these features were in your classroom?

This was really cool. There were wild mountain goats feeding close to the monument. Some of them had babies. Did you know baby goats are called kids? But I'm not calling you goats when I say, "Hi Kids!"

This is another cool thing we found at Mount Rushmore. This ice cream is made from a recipe used by President Jefferson. The recipe is over 200 years old!

Mr. Jack offered me some but I was afraid I would get my fur sticky! So Mr. Jack ate it all.
Your friend,
Fuzzy

Grandest of Them All

Hi Kids,
I told you in one of my earlier letters that 2016 is the 100th anniversary of the National Park Service. We had national parks before then but they weren't properly cared for so the National Park Service was created to make sure all America's most special places were protected. Mr. Jack, Miss Elaine and I are trying to visit as many of these parks as we can. It's a big job -- there are over 400 nationally recognized parks, memorials, monuments, rivers, trails, seashores and historic sites. It's hard to pick a favorite but for many people -- and me, too -- it's the Grand Canyon.

The Grand Canyon was carved 5 or 6 million years ago by the Colorado River. The running water simply wore away the soil and rocks and created this amazing canyon. Of course, it got some help from wind and rain, but the river did most of the work. The river flows 277 miles through the canyon -- that's more miles than from here to Dallas. At its greatest depth it is a mile deep.
 

One of the most amazing things about the canyon is that we can look back into the history of the earth by looking at the layers of rock in the canyon. The top layer is the youngest -- about 270,000 years old. The bottom layer of rocks is about 2 billion years old. That's 2,000,000,000 -- I can't count that high!

The park has two parts. One is the North Rim of the canyon, the other the South Rim. Most people just go to the South Rim -- it's easier to get to. It's only about 10 miles from one side of the canyon to the other -- but there's no bridge. It's about a five hour drive to get from the south side to the north. I've been to both sides and I love them both. I hope you like the pictures.

Love,
Fuzzy

Fuzzy in Caceres

Hi Kids,

This is me sitting outside the wall of historic Caceres in western Spain. Caceres is really a city in a city. The historic part is centuries old -- parts of some of the buildings go back to Roman times. It's such a wonderful place, it has been named a UNESCO World Heritage Site. In olden times, many cities built walls for protection and Caceres is one of them. Once there was no more room inside the wall, more of the city built up outside. Today Caceres is a large city with modern skyscrapers -- but the heart of the city is very old. That's where Miss Elaine and I stayed. Here's part of what we saw the first day there.

As you can see, the buildings don't look like downtown Edmond! These buildings are 400 to 500 years old.

The streets are very narrow and the town is hilly. Early builders liked to build their towns on top of hills so they could see if an enemy was coming!

There are a number of plazas in the town -- public squares where people gather to visit or to eat. Spanish shops close for several hours every afternoon so everyone can go home and take a siesta (nap). When they get up -- you can tell this is late afternoon by the shadows -- they like to have a small snack. Spanish people eat dinner much later than we do. Many restaurants don't open until 8 or 8:30. I'll tell you more about that in another post.

This is a statue of San Pedro -- we'd call him Saint Peter -- in front of the main cathedral. People think it will bring them good luck if they rub the statue's toes. If they want to find a boyfriend or girlfriend, they kiss the toes. You can see how shiny the toes are from all that rubbing! Miss Elaine and I rubbed the toes, too. But we knew we were already lucky -- we were in beautiful Spain!

Love,
Fuzzy

Big Cheese

Hi Kids,

Have you ever been to a cheese museum?  This building is over a hundred years old and it used to be a house where shepherds lived. They kept their sheep out in the hills and would watch them every day. And they milked them, just like people milk cows. And they made cheese from the milk.   

These are Merino sheep -- the kind that make the milk that my new favorite cheese is made from.  The tree is an olive tree.  Did you know olives grow on trees?  I thought they came out of jars!

This is what the kitchen looked like when the shepherds lived here. The big pot is the stove -- they would build a fire under it. This doesn't look like our kitchens today, does it? The lady at the museum let me sit in the child's chair. The mother would have sat in the other chair and stirred the pot.

After we visited the cheese museum house, we went to a modern factory where they make the cheese today.

Everybody had to wear hairnets and aprons and shoe covers and gloves so everything would stay very clean. They didn't have any my size, so I had to wait outside while Miss Elaine went in. When she came back, there was a nice surprise.

We got to sample several kinds of cheeses that they make here.  Yum!

This is Ricardo Vivas. He is holding a torta del Casar (cah-SAHR) -- that kind of means "cake from Casar" -- because it is round and flat like a cake. But it's not cake -- it's cheese. The outside is called the rind -- you don't eat that part -- but when you slice the top off.......

Inside is wonderful, creamy cheese! It's the consistency of pudding but it's not sweet. It's cheesy -- a little salty, a little stinky--in a good way-- and it's wonderful. It is only made in a tiny area in Spain and only eight family businesses make this cheese so it's very hard to get in the United States. I hope Miss Elaine will take me back to Spain some day so I can have some more torta del Casar!

We had lots of good food on this trip but I liked this cheese -- and all the desserts -- best!
Love,
Fuzzy

Fuzzy Goes to Madrid

Hola, Kids,

I hope you got my postcards -- so you know I am in Spain.  Miss Elaine and I are at a restaurant called Platea. That's a strange name for a restaurant because it means a certain kind of seating in a theater. But this restaurant used to be a movie theater so that's why.  The restaurant has several levels. We were eating in an area where people order small plates of food called tapas -- they share with one another and usually get several plates so they can try different things.

Lots of people like to shop when they travel.  We went to a big department store and I found a friend. Her name is Carolina. In the toy department there were many of the same toys we have here in Los Estados Unidos (that's Spanish for The United States) -- even Elsa and Spiderman toys.

Our favorite thing to do is sightseeing. We loved the beautiful buildings with their pretty colors and little balconies. Many of them had red tiled roofs.  There were lots of trees in downtown Madrid and a number of beautiful parks.

One of the parks was called the Plaza de Espana (Square of Spain) -- it was right across the street from our hotel.  There is a huge monument there to Spain's most famous author, Miguel de Cervantes. His most famous book is called "Don Quixote."  This is a statue of Don Quixote (on the horse) and his friend Sancho Panza (on a donkey). Some day you may want to read this book.

Miss Elaine and I got to see the Royal Palace (the one on the post card I sent you). We bought the card and the stamps nearby.  We didn't have time to see inside the palace.  It is very big -- there are more than 3,000 rooms.  I would like to go back to Madrid some day and see it.  There are lots of things to see in Madrid and we were only there for two days!

This was my very favorite thing in Madrid!  We met a very nice policeman and he let me sit on his horse. The police in Madrid have regular police cars and motorcycles but I like it that they still have horses, too.

Madrid was very beautiful and people were very friendly. As we say in Spanish, "Me gusta Espana!'  That means "I like Spain!"  Any way you say it, Spain is a wonderful country!

Amor,
Fuzzy




 

Rock Stars

Hi Kids,
     Did you know that over one hundred years ago, people in our government gave us a great gift?  As explorers headed west, they found many beautiful areas of the country -- places no one had ever seen. These explorers knew that these places should be saved for all time -- so their children, grandchildren and even great-great-great-grandchildren could see them, too.
      In 1872, President Grant declared that the area around the Yellowstone River was so special it should be a national park. That was our first one.
     As time went on, this seemed like such a good idea that President Theodore Roosevelt decided in 1906 that other special places should be preserved also. Ten years later, the National Park Service, the department of the government that is in charge of all the national parks and other nationally-designated sites, was created. Next year the NPS will celebrate its 100th birthday. I want to help celebrate by seeing as many of these places as I can.
     On my recent trip, I got to see several of them. The land in the picture above is in the Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona. I think I sent you a postcard from there. Part of the land in the park is called the Painted Desert. You can see why by looking at all the colors in the hills. These colors are created by different minerals in the soil.

           I met a new friend here. She is seven -- just like some of you -- and she liked the colors, too.

     This is Mr. Jack. He is standing by some petrified trees. These trees were alive and growing over two million years ago. They have become fossilized. That means that water seeped into the wood, depositing minerals which eventually replaced all the natural wood material with stone. Over thousands of years, the stone trees broke into smaller pieces.

                                                                      And this is me!

     This is what the petrified wood looks like up close. You can tell it is rock -- it doesn't look like wood at all. I think it is very pretty, don't you? Aren't you glad that these special places are protected? No one is allowed to take even a tiny pebble from a national park. So all these great things will be there for you when you go!

More travels soon,
Fuzzy