Wildlife Safari

To make the trip down to Medford more bearable, we promised our animal loving girl a ride through Wildlife Safari. She wanted to see elephants like at the zoo. We figured the place could totally deliver.

Thank goodness we had something to tempt her with. The kiddo could not understand why we wanted her to stay in her carseat, even with the boys agreed to watch Tangled on the TVs we'd strapped to the headrests. Snacks and promises to see Pop Pop just weren't cutting it.

The ostriches helped out by greeting us just inside the gate. The kids loved being able to release their seatbelts and peer out the windows at the animals. And the boys were thrilled with the ostrich peed. Grace spotted a zebra and we followed it, spying the gemsboks.

What is a gemsbok? An African antelope. Both males and females have long, straight horns that can be made into...well, a horn.

We hadn't been there in a while, and noticed a few changes, like electrical fencing at the lion and bear exhibits. It used to be that they'd just make you roll up your windows. It didn't matter much because it was hot out. The bears and lions were just lying in the shade.

The giraffe's were very friendly, and later we found out why. Wildlife Safari has a special outing where you can ride in the back of a truck and feed the giraffes! It was too late in the day for us to give it a try, but the boys want to try for an earlier start next time.

We watched a group feeding the giraffes and it was hilarious! Everyone wanted to feed the giraffe lettuce leaves, but even the brawniest guys recoiled as the long, black tongue came their way.

The Watusi cattle came into view next. It always seems strange to see cows meandering alongside exotic animals, but the cattle did originate in Africa. And their horns are in the Guiness Book of world records for girth.

After spying the rest of the zebras, rhinosm and more antelope-like African creatures, it was on to the Americas section of the park. The bison have no fear of cars, and better merging skills than most Portland drivers. They walked beside us, and then crossed the road between our van and the one behind us.

As we left the sleeping black bears and brown bears, we were suprised to find an elk standing beside the road. It was as if she were posing for pictures.

The elephants were behind fences and hard to get a good picture of, but Grace liked seeing them anyway. The same happened with the gibbon (monkey). The kids were all thrilled by the camel, and I was excited that I remember the two hump camels are Bactrian (like a B) while the one hump camel is Dromedary (like a D). No one else was impressed by this.

The boys really liked when they could see the animals poop. So...I video'd this rhea ::

Once we'd completed the circut, we explored Safari Village for a bit. Grace was pretty tired by this point, but the boys wanted to ride a camel, so off we went. We tried to put Grace on with Bayley, but she wasn't having it. This camel is Dromedary, by the way. Yeah, the family wasn't impressed either.