Tuesday, July 12, 2011

Tennessee Safari Park

OK, so here we are, almost the middle of July and I'm working on my first post of the month. Pathetic, I know! But seriously, try as I may, I can't even begin to explain the lack of time and/or motivation I have for sitting and writing these days.

And even worse, after being a reading machine for months, even that has come to a screeching halt. I swear it took me almost a month to get through the book I just finished. And it's not because it was a particularly bad book, because it wasn't. It's all due to my severe lack of time/motivation.

All I know is that whoever came up with the phrase "Lazy Summer Days" was totally and absolutely clueless. Cause our summer has been everything but lazy! And truth be told, I need to remedy that PRONTO, or I will most certainly lose my mind!

Between art camp, swim lessons, VBS, and more swim lessons, my days are like a whirlwind of activity.

Anyway, I'd like to take a second to slow down enough to share with you some pictures of one of our latest outings. A couple weekends ago we decided to visit the Tennessee Safari Park in Alamo, TN. We had invited my parents to come along with us, but when my brother and his family got wind of our plans, they decided this was an adventure they could not miss. So off we all went.

The first part of the visit consists of a drive-thru safari park, where you buy buckets of food and feed the animals while you drive through their "safari". I'm not gonna lie, it was pretty fun! The kids had a blast holding their buckets out the windows for the animals to come up to the car to eat.

This is my nephew, obeying the do not get out of the car rule...well, kinda!

These animals were definitely not shy.
They eagerly walked up to every single car on the path.


OK, so funny story. 
This ostrich ran up the car and after he ate out of Scott's bowl, 
he made his way to Sam, who was hanging his bowl out the back window.



Sam decided it would be so much more fun to actually hand feed this bird. The ostrich pecked once, and then again, and then decided Sam's fingers looked so delicious, he stuck Sam's entire hand inside it's beak. Well, needless to say our boy was screaming his head off. And once we realized he was OK, and was more shaken up than anything else, we laughed our heads off. And he looked at us and yelled: "THAT BIRD ALMOST ATE ME!" In hindsight, I think he felt a bit indignant at our laughing. But trust me, had you been there, you would have laughed too!

Anyhoo, we continued on our trek of feeding animals. 
Well, all of us, except for Sam.
He continued on, but refused to feed!
;)



Luckily, after a very traumatic 5 minutes, 
our boy was fully recovered from his "near-death experience". 
Ha Ha Ha!
Oh, the drama!

Once you finish the drive-thru aspect, then you go on to their petting zoo.
We had to buy more food (we had saved some from the drive-thru part without realizing we couldn't feed it to the petting zoo animals), some carrots and some milk.

Here I am feeding the giraffe some carrots.
This was definitely my favorite part!

The kids were loving the goats, sheep and deer.



We took a little break to get some rest, shade/air (boy, it was HOT!), snacks, and photos.

Hello, Mr. Monkey!

 Are these two not the cutest?
 


Work it, girl, with yo' gorgeous self!

And then we decided since we still had food left over from our first go-round, 
we would drive around the safari again and then head back home.

We had some new visitors:
Some very persistent visitors:
Yeah, this bull followed us for the longest time.
Regardless of the speed we were going.
He would not stop eating the food.
He stuck his entire head in our car.
And even after we put the window up, he continued to follow us.
Even licking the window.
We were dying laughing!

And some return visitors:
Remember him?
Sam certainly did!
And this is what he looked like at that specific moment:
Did you notice his hands strategically hidden between his legs?
HaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHa!
See? It's still funny!

It turned out to be a very fun day!
But let me give you a couple tips, in case you decide to visit:

(1) They only accept cash.
Good thing someone told me this beforehand, since we NEVER carry cash, 
and they do not have an ATM on the premises.
 and
(2) You might want to pack snacks/drinks for your visit.
They actually do sell stuff there, but it is EXPENSIVE!

3 comments:

Jill W. said...

Looks like it was a really neat place. I've never even heard of it. My boys would have loved it when they were little. Thanks for sharing!

Anonymous said...

This was hysterical! I love that he was hiding his hands...too funny!
Lynn

Krystle said...

Hahaha poor Sam! So cool that you made it a family day with every and that place looks awesome! I definitely want to take Logan there but I think I'll wait until the heat wave passes to go! Ha!