Safari Day

On Saturday we spent the day in Gentry, Arkansas. We went to this awesome wilderness safari and had a blast. Gentry is about 30 minutes from our house, so we loaded up the car and drove over to the "Wild Wilderness Drive-through Safari."

The first half of the park was a drive-through. We got the kids out of their car seats and let them sit on our laps while we drove around. They LOVED it!

Tanner especially loved driving!

Bailey couldn't get enough of the animals...

The animals would literally come right up to the windows of our car and look right at us. It was so weird but cool. See the ostrich in the picture?

Bailey loved yelling out the names of each animal as we spotted them. Zebras were one of her top favorites.

But she kinda freaked when this zebra came right up to our window. It  was so funny. He just stood there looking at us for the longest time.

Even Bailey took a turn driving.

Then there was this big guy giving us the stare down.

Some of the more predatory animals were kept in cages, so we couldn't get as close to them in the car. We saw this bear but we also saw lions, tigers, panthers and leopards. It was pretty cool.

Check out this massive Rhino.

 

After the drive-through segment of the tour, we did the hands-on portion. There was a petting zoo area where you could feed the goats, ponies, donkeys, chickens and pigs.

Bailey very carefully picked out each piece of bread she fed to the animals. It was so funny to watch her.

Tanner was more a fan of the goats and animals there were behind the fences- that couldn't reach him. He didn't like that the animals were as big or bigger than him. And the goats kept trying to eat the bag of food he was carrying.

Tanner did enjoy checking out the different exotic birds. Chris helped him collect different bird feathers. (Completely sanitary right?)

This was as close as we got to a lion, but I did hear that in the spring they had lion cubs you could pet. How cool is that?

But I think the biggest hit of the day were these little ferrets. As creepy as they look, they were so sweet to hold. They just snuggle up to your chest and let you hold them.

Tanner did not want to give his up. He took like 6 turns holding them.

Even I took a turn holding the little things. So soft!

Then we spent some time with the camels and giraffes.

We even got to pet the giraffe!

 

By 2:00 pm the kids were exhausted so we decided to grab some lunch and head home.

 

It was such a cool place and we look forward to going back again. Maybe we will have to go back in the spring when they will have some new cubs and other animal babies.

 

It's so nice to have Chris home every weekend. I know it seems like a small thing, but for the last year he didn't get weekends off work so we are loving this!!

One more thing we can check off our NWA bucket list.

A+ for the "Wild Wilderness Drive-Through Safari"!!!!