The Wildlife Ranch

We thought the San Antonio zoo was cool.  You gotta check this place out.  The Wildlife Ranch is a drive thru safari adventure.  The kids got to be out of their seats the whole time and Calvin even got to drive some.

Driving through the park, especially close to opening time, the animals were waiting by the side of the road ready for some food.  With your ticket purchase, you're given 1 bag of food and can purchase extra bags for $1.  We got an extra bag, but I guess we scrimped on the food because 2 weeks later of leftovers being in the car, I decided it wasn't worth saving the extra $1.  The rule is to not let the animals eat from your hand although we saw cars behind us that didn't obey this rule at all.   Sometimes the animals were shy like this Formosan Sika.  (I recommend paying the extra $3 for the glossy, color guidebook.  Andrew, Izzy and Alex had fun (and still do) looking through this guidebook trying to identify the animals as we saw them.  Glen and I would try guessing the names but were almost always way off.  Doesn't that look like a deer to you?)

While other animals you could tell have eaten from hands often and were ready for their feeding.  This is Alex getting some more food for this Aoudad (our guess was a mountain goat.  Maybe we're still right.)  They were not shy in the least bit.

And this Longhorn (Glen guessed right) came up and showed us his mouth.  I got some good video footage, but still can't find the cord to hook the video camera to the computer.  We couldn't stop laughing as he stuck his head in our car ...

and proceeded to lick the inside walls.  Is it salty or do you just like the texture?

I think this is a Wildebeest.

This is a Gemsbok.

And this is a Kudu.  Why are their horns all different?

And aren't these animals crazy looking?  They look like a mix between the body of a cow or horse and the head of a deer.  They're called Nilgai and they're from India.

The emus were almost our favorites.  They had us laughing the hardest.  We had to watch out because they kept sticking their heads in the car trying to get the food and came so close to pecking us.

We'd leave food on the seat and they'd stick right in and get it.  Even if we didn't have food, they'd peck away.  I'm not sure if this is an all the time thing or if we were lucky being early in the day on a weekday when it wasn't so crowded.

You can't tell from this picture very well, but seeing the underside of their wings, you could see each feather attached to the body.  It was crazy looking.

And this picture I call psycho bird.  I wonder if it has glaucoma or something because the eyes definitely added to the scariness of this picture.  The emus were a lot of fun.  One even got Izzy's finger.  She got brave on us and tried to let it eat out of her hand.  It nipped her finger a little trying to get the food out.  Izzy was o.k., and it definitely taught her and the other kids a good lesson.

Don't know if you can tell, but this one has red beady eyes.  Ragged looking thing isn't he.

Now this is the reason the emus had to be ranked as number 2.  I can never get over how gorgeous zebras are.

And then one came up and let us pet her.  How often does that get to happen.

Then she gave us a show and showed us her teeth.  It looks like she's biting but nope.  She was just showing us her teeth.  That's when I thought, maybe not so pretty unless someone gave you a good teethbrushing.  That extra green stuff between the teeth ... not so attractive.

The giraffes looked like statues, but every now and then we'd see them move to reassure us they were in fact real.

And of course.  What would a trip be without discovering a cool bug.  Check out the design on this stink bug.  (We checked online and it's called a stink bug because if you pick it up, it'll leave a secretion that stinks.  Andrew's so cautious to not let anyone get close enough to possibly pick one up.  Even when we found a dead one in our backyard, he didn't want anyone to touch it for fear we'd get stinky.  I tested it and that turned into a fun dissection day.  Fortunately, we've avoided getting stinked so far.)

Even ducks enjoy a nice refreshing shower.

And to top off how cool this place is, they have a petting zoo which was filled with baby goats.

We had a BLAST!!!