ADVENTURES IN THE WILD

I had the chance to get away for a couple of days last week and go home to East Tn to visit family. We really crammed in some fun. We started out with an overnight camping trip...4 of us in a 2 man tent...interesting. I had my first go with Wii - Mario Cart.. very fun; and I took Maggie and Sam (my niece and nephew-loves of my life) to a drive through Wildlife Safari...that's right, you heard me....Drive Through. McDonald's does it, Starbucks does it and now... Briarwood Ranch is doing it. We ventured out...me and the two little people in the family mini-van. We were the first to arrive, buy our 4 buckets of food, get instructions, and head out...oh, but not before having a feeding and play time with "Patches" the billy goat and a few others. Maggie was beside herself with excitement; Sam, not so much...in the back and serious concern on his face. I was loaded... TWO cameras and a camcorder ready for action. We were told "Just roll down your windows and the animals will just come right up to your vehicle to eat". I'm thinking..this is going to be SO cool!!! We pull through the gate and Maggie climbs to the front seat with food in hand and then it happened..... we were swarmed. It was like someone had opened Noah's ark and pointed the animals our direction.
Go ahead and picture it... there we were in the mini van literally surrounded by ostrich, deer of all kinds, zebra, lamas, buffalo, even a pot belly pig and they were NOT intimidated by us at all. I finally convinced Maggie to just roll down the window halfway and try feeding them but when the Moose got his whole head in the van and was eating like he hadn't had a meal in a week (throwing food all in the van) she was having no fun. We thought we'd drive on down a little and see if maybe we could find a smaller group to feed. We finally make our way through the masses and go up and over a hill to where we see 4 deer. We sigh with relief and roll down the windows for a few deer to come eat. It's all nice until Maggie yells "Auntie A, they're coming after us!" I look behind us and about 100 ft back comes the whole gang RUNNING at us. Maggie rolls up the windows and we peel out like we're leaving a bank robbery. Maggie's yelling, Sam's in the back crying... not how I saw this adventure going. We finally got out and went for another drive through AFTER the animals had been fed by others and were not so aggressive and we actually enjoyed it. He's a few shots from that day and the whole vacation.
Thanks for stopping by!