Animal Magnetism

One of the best thing about being on the East Coast is that it makes it easier to visit the people that we love. Not that we've actually done this. For the most part, we've remained set in our people avoidant ways and have neglected all of the people we cherish. Most of our contact with others is driven by work, so when hubbybear had a conference in Tennessee, we saw it as the perfect opportunity to go and visit with the grandparents. Naturally, we couldn't go straight there. Instead, we stopped at a Safari Zoo to hang out with the animals.

Most of the safari pictures, therefore, provide an excellent view of some animal's nostrils or eyeball.

The safari is, well, a safari. You stay in your car with the windows down and a bunch of herbivores stick their heads in the windows to be fed. The llamas were the worst. They were like crazed window washers if window washers traveled in herds. They had a whole system worked out where they surrounded your car on all sides so you couldn't drive past them. Once they had you stopped, that's when the feeding frenzy began, If you weren't careful, they would grab the whole feed container right out of your hands. I soon became adept at making them think I meant business by inching the car forward until we were free of the voracious hustlers. 

The zoo is located on over 150 acres of land, some of which is pastoral, and other [arts of which are verdant forests. Once we had driven beyond the more social creatures at the beginning of the park, we encountered an assorment of animals that were content to ignore us.

Once we finished driving through the safari, we walked around the zoo.As kismet would have it, we ran into a unschooling mom and her son who just happened to belong to one of the Facebook groups that I belong to. They, like us, were visiting for the day for a bit of spontaneous educational fun. Lady Chatterly and Racer Boy bonded over birds and giraffes. I had forgotten to charge my camera at the hotel the night before, so all of the remaining pictures were taken by Sir Talks A Lot.

Feeding the birds inside o the aviary

Feeding the giraffes