Groupon: Safari Park Tickets

Just before school got out Jeremy texted me that he had found a couple of great deals on Groupon for fun summer activities we could share with the girls.

The first of our summer fun included a weekend day-trip to a Safari Park about an hour and a half away.

The drive there was beautiful winding country roads through rolling hills, trees and farms. It was an overcast morning and felt unseasonably refreshing outside.

We didn't tell the kids what we were doing until we got to the Sharkarosa Wildlife Ranch because we knew how excited they would be, and they were!

The first thing we did was let them ride in the barrel train. It wiggled along a winding path blaring the "I like to move it, move it" theme song from Madagascar to the delight of happy children and parents.

Next we visited the black bear sanctuary and read all the signs along the way about the history of this wildlife ranch and the animals they have rescued and taken into their care. It is a special place.

We boarded our safari train:

 

And we were off to see more interesting wildlife.

 

Like the Zorse (zebra-horse).... his markings were stunning, very tribal looking

 

and the Z-donk or Zonkey (zebra-donkey) didn't get a great photo of him, but he was cool too

 

and many other beautiful horses all of which came right up to us and let us pet them

(probably had something to do with the fact that we had full feed buckets attached to the sides of our safari train)

 

 

It was especially cool seeing and petting the camels and learning about them. They were very playful so it was fun to watch them run and jump and tussel with each other.

We saw many other animals as well before making it back to the station just as it was beginning to sprinkle. Fortunately we quickly made our way to the shelter of their brick oven pizza restaurant mere seconds before the sky opened up and released  a downpour! We felt terrible for the group behind us who were not so lucky and had to sit on their train until the storm passed.....to say they were soaked would be an understatement!

But the heavy rain passed quickly and once it cleared up again and we finished our day at the safari park by visiting the lemurs, kangaroos, parrots, pot belly pigs, goats, and other small creatures.

A pretty cool little day trip.
Thanks babe for being so thoughtful and getting us tickets for this adventure.