Riddles for a Walk

I'm always looking for adventure.  In everything.  My body certainly can use the exercise.  Two days each week the Things I get to do today include hiking over to the local Parks & Recreation Center for Tai Chi.  I'm totally new to this art and figure that the balance training and two-mile round-trip walk will help my body and sharpen my mind.  Walking means I don't have to jockey around in the parking lot wishing I could put my car in my hip pocket and be done with it instead of circling, waiting for someone to leave, and dealing with the scratchy feeling inside.  After all, Tai Chi is partly about peacefulness on the inside, balance on the outside, and sharp, sharp minds.

What is this called?

So let's see how sharp my mind is as I walk to class. My camera will record a few scenes from my short trip.  Being a civil engineer's wife, I dutifully found an interesting section of road and recorded it. Can you guess what you are seeing in this picture and what it is called?  Big Clue:  it is named after an animal that lives only in the United States and China (a Trivia question for sure).






Hard as I looked for other interesting pavement sections to photograph, there was nothing other than some patched sections, school crossing warnings painted on the asphalt, and speed bump/bicycle cautions also done up in reflective white on the black surface.  Snores are already coming from readers as I write this and at this instant it's not even posted.

Suddenly I discovered little folks with funny faces who were begging to sit for a portrait.  Can you tell me, for our second riddle of my walk, what family these faces belong to?

If either of these riddles takes you very long, you might want to check out Tai Chi at your local exercise facility just to get things moving mentally.