“Outtakes” from the Foster and Panda adventures!

In case you don’t remember this scene from “An Adventure in the Swiss Alps”, that’s because it ended up on the proverbial “cutting room floor”. And since social distancing has kind of cut into their world travels, Foster and Panda thought it would be fun to go through some of the pictures that never made to the actual blog stories. While writing the Foster and Panda adventures, I always seem to collect more photos than what I actually use. That’s because when I look through Pixabay for background photos I find all sorts of things that lend themselves to adventurous incidents, but I may later realize they don’t quite fit with the way the story is unfolding, or would just make the story too long. So what to do with all these “outtakes”? Save them, of course, “for such a time as this”.To be honest I don’t remember if this was going to be for “A Trip to Monterey Bay” or “Friends in the Philippines”. But since they seem to have a snack during each adventure, it seriously could have been anywhere!You would be amazed at how many animal friends “the guys” have met that never made it to the blog. In South Africa, (see “A Trip to Cape Town”), Lavender the chameleon and Froggy the African clawed frog were going to introduce Panda to a curious mongoose. What part was he to have had in the adventure? Not even I know the answer to that one!Mongooses (or mongeese??) aside, imagine their surprise upon meeting this biturong in the Philippine jungle.  The biturong is also called a “bearcat”, although it is related to neither cats nor bears. And supposedly they have scent glands that make them smell like buttered popcorn. (Just so you know I do my research!)One of the activities Panda didn’t share with you from his experience at Basic Training was this. And this. But as long as we know he graduated from Basic with honors, I guess we can just leave the story behind these photos to our imaginations.In his never ending quest to find his “long lost relatives”, Panda posed for a quick snapshot with this rabbit on their trip to the farm in Sweden. But then again, it could have been the Seattle state fair. It’s pretty bad when even the author can’t remember!

Falling (as usual) into the zebra exhibit at the San Diego zoo. This was when they hired camels to explore Egypt. The photo in the actual adventure (“Out of Egypt”) shows them both on the same camel, but I really do like this one.In “A New Friend”, they were going to go visit the tortoise in his den, but they didn’t have time.Peeking over a sand dune with a seal in Monterey would have been fun, but for some reason this incident didn’t make the cut.This would have been really exciting. As you can see even the Egyptian tourists had to stop in amazement and ask, “Never mind the pocket, is that a real panda??” We can only imagine that Foster was admonishing him to get down before he got hurt. Foster watches warily as a curious goat sniffs them, apparently after they found themselves in an open field at the farm.This one, in the Swiss Alps, seems to be asking Panda, “Is that a real cat?”For some reason the serene lake view at Yosemite somehow didn’t make it into “Fun at Yosemite”.With a sheep on the farm in Sweden. Not sure where it would have fit in, but isn’t it a great shot? And who knew Panda was going to break up a marmot fight while undercover at the San Diego Zoo?I don’t think this was really the Monterey Bay aquarium, but sometimes you have to take “artistic license” with the background photos. I’m not saying for sure, but I think Panda could have been tapping on the glass!

Well that was fun!

And if you’re wondering what these guys have been doing lately, this is pretty much it. They’ve been enjoying reminiscing about their previous adventures and dreaming of new adventures yet to come!