Wildlife Safari

I realized that I didn't tell anyone about our most recent family adventure. Since we don't do things this cool very often, and have some great pictures to show from it, I wanted to post it.

After going to a place with some great waterfalls with some friends, my brother David wanted the four us (himself, me & Jesse, and our mom) to take a trip to the same place, thinking we'd enjoy it a lot. As the weekend approached, though, the weather wasn't looking favorable. There was going to be much hiking around these falls, and things were shaping up to be cold and rainy. We still really wanted to do something fun, though, and somewhere in the brainstorming, the idea of going to Wildlife Safari was tossed around. Jesse was the only one of us who had ever been there, but he was so young that he didn't remember anything about it. We all love animals and are especially fascinated by reall exotic ones like giraffes and tigers. The idea of being able to drive through the park and have the animals walk up to your car sounded awesome, although we were all a bit leery if it was too good to be true. We made the 2 hour drive to Winston, Oregon and drove down the long driveway to the park. The expense of 4 adults passes can add up to quite a bit, but is worth it because of the cool animals you see, and because you can drive through twice for that one price.

The only rules were that you had to roll up your windows during the bear exhibit, not stopping (since bears are very curious and could easily come up to your car and snatch things out of your window) and you couldn't feed any of the animals. Otherwise, you were able to take your time and see the animals as much as you wanted.

For those who have never been there, the park is a huge area of land, and each section is surrounded mostly by fences. Each section is so large, though, that you don't really feel enclosed in any space. And the fences are left open between most areas allowing you to drive freely from one place to the next. The animals are kept in their areas by cattle guards where the fences are open, but many animals inter-mingle with each other. There are some hut-like things in the fields that allow the animals to graze and get shelter (just like at the zoo) and the roads are gravel giving you a path to follow as you drive through. Some of the more dangerous animals are kept behind fences which don't allow you to drive through. These include the wildcats like tigers, lions, and cheetahs, and the black bears and the elephants, to name a few.

There were some cool experiences we had:

While driving through the first time, the Siberian tigers had just laid there with very little action. However, the 2nd drive through, we watched one dive into the pool of water. And then, just as quickly, something got its attention and it leaped out of the water and sprinted to the edge of the cage, pacing as it eyed whatever it was. It was just cool to see this massive tiger lunge like it did, while remaining only about 10 feet away from us.

Also, while some animals keep their distance a bit, the buffalos were sitting in the middle of the road, with only enough room to barely drive your car through. If you see the picture below with the great big head of the buffalo, that was looking at me through my driver's window. The picture is not zoomed in. It really was that close! I also learned at this moment that buffalos are disgusting creatures. We saw them hacking up hairballs, peeing and pooping all in that bit of the exhibit. They stink and their hair is all matted, and the flies buzz all around them. I suppose that they're just living their buffalo life and I wouldn't want people gawking at me all of the time while I try to live my life. Despite how repulsive I felt that they were, I was still amazed by their grand size and how close they were to me, merely inches away!

The coolest thing of all, though, was seeing the giraffes. Giraffes are my mom's favorite animals. She has a wide assortment of them all around her room, from stuffed animals to wooden carvings to pictures on the wall. She just thinks they are really neat animals. During the drive through them, she sat turned towards the window with both hands over the edge of it, like a little child excited to see her favorite animal up close and personal. We sat and watched them longer than any other animal. During the first drive, we were just intrigued by their behavior, as one ate from a tree and the other licked the top of the hut's tin roof. The licking was really weird to us because we didn't understand what it was trying to taste, and the way its tongue reached out and bent underneath its chin was odd. During our 2nd drive through, though, the giraffes made their ways from the hut further away to walking right alongside our car, no more than 10 feet away. When they were so close, the sheer scale of how big they really are became more obvious. We sat, fascinated by their lanky bodies and the texture of their fur and the ways their necks bent with each step. And, truthfully, each of us was hoping one would put his head right up to our window. But after about 10 mins of lingering near our car, they began to walk back up the hill to graze some more. By far, the coolest part of the day. And, I was so excited for my mom to experience such a neat moment with her favorite animal.

After you finished the drive through the safari, you could park your car and go through their little wildlife village. Here, they had some animals in large glass enclosures like screech owls and snakes. They had cafes where you could eat and look out at the monkeys swinging below. There were gift shops with the cutest stuffed animals that cost nearly as much as going through the park and seeing the real thing! And there was a petting zoo with llamas and tiny baby goats that you could feed for a quarter.

We had such a great time! I used up my entire memory card on my camera, my battery died, and then I bought a disposable camera just to keep taking pictures. We stopped for ice cream in a little town on the way back that was supposed to have really good ice cream. I'm not sure what was supposed to be so great about it except that it had more unusual flavors than most ice cream stands. What we all got, though, tasted very good!

A great way to spend our Saturday. Here are a few of the pics to show you what I mean: