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Bring the Exotic to You

In December, Jenna was between jobs so we decided to go to Costa Rica. Not surprisingly, this was awesome. We got photos of howler monkeys mid-howl, capuchin monkeys trying to get into my backpack, sloths that were awake, and frogs galore.

We also saw a few of these guys.



First of all, they're giant. This guy was probably six feet long, nose to tail, and I would guess it was a solid 30 pounds (weirdly I was not able to leap out of the boat, swim to shore, climb the tree stump, and hold it to confirm its weight).

Second of all, we saw several and noticed that some had back stripes on their tails while others didn't. We learned that this is essentially a sign of age. Young ones are green, older ones start to turn colors. It's not unlike getting colored spots on your skin as you get older...except those are basically just your skin dying.

Anyway, going to Costa Rica was awesome and we saw all kinds of cool wildlife which I will talk at-length about in later posts.

Fast forward to yesterday, March 26. We went to the pancake breakfast in Chesterland - the greatest fund-raising event on the planet - and then took our dog to a Cleveland Metropark for a nice long walk. We spent a couple of hours strolling through the South Chagrin Reservation and then took the scenic route back to our house in Cleveland Heights.

We got back and noticed our neighbor standing at the base of her backdoor stairs, looking towards our house. They have a dog, but based on where she was looking, the dog must have been under the stairs of our deck. Odd, but not that odd.

We got out of the car, said hello, and started to go toward the house. Then I saw one of these guys.



Our neighbor has a 5.5 foot long, 9ish year old pet iguana. It was so nice outside yesterday that she decided to let it outside to sniff around and explore. It was...not what I was expecting when I pulled into our driveway.

His name was Harrison and he seemed nice enough. Our dog tried to make a new friend and had mixed levels of success. When the woman held Harrison, the dog had a great time sniffing at him and trying to lick his tail, but when Harrison sat on their back steps and dog wanted to get another look, he caught a pretty swift tail-whip to the neck/shoulder area.

However, our dog is not terribly smart, so he went back for more attention. And another tail-whip.

I pulled him away after the 2nd one. He wanted more. What a dog way of thinking.

Next time you think "hey, I want to see some exotic animals," just remember that you don't really have to go to another country, you just have to know people who are a little off-center. Those people are usually the best.

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