Animal & Snake Zoo!

Well, peeps.

The Summer that feels like go-go-GO just keeps on going!

We went from our Wisconsin trip, to celebrating Chica’s birthday, to grandparents arriving in town for a visit, all in the blur of 48 hours! And we certainly haven’t let any grass grow before, after, or anytime in between.

Now.

In keeping with this pace of fun activity, we wanted to go on a little adventure today, but we were having a hard time getting motivated to pay the prices of some of the larger theme parks or major local attractions. 

So I got a bit creative with something random that we’ve seen—literally on the service road of the highway—for the last couple of years, anytime we’ve headed in or out of town.

Drum roll, puh-lease…

Yep. That’s right. This totally random animal and snake zoo that looks a little sketchy but just intriguing enough that you’re willing to give it a go, ha.

Apparently, it began in the ‘60’s as a roadside reptile attraction, and it’s just been expanding in random odds and end since then. And that’s sort of the feel you get when you’re on site.

But here’s what it gave us today:

A chance for something new and different.

A manageable, small-ish outdoor zoo that wouldn’t beat us down with its massive size.

Indoor/outdoor spaces to help with the oppressive heat.

Hands-on fun with some animals—even an alligator!

Sightings of lots of randoms that are often atypical for your standard zoo, like warthogs, pot-bellied pigs, a black Jaguar, peacocks, bison, wandering roosters, and just loads more.

Apparently, the property has recently acquired many additional acres to eventually build more expansive animal enclosures, so we’re going to hope that they treat their lovely creatures well, and that we contributed to an upstanding place today. :) ‘Cause I can guarantee our souvenir dollars were spent! Ha.



I love how my babies were amateur photographers today. It was pretty adorable. 



They’ve seen this type of python on one of our beloved Crikey! episodes. :)



They really did enjoy looking at alllllll the snakes. Especially the ones ranked as most venomous, tehe.



Little Man looked so old and handsome in his new hat today, but nearly every pic I snagged of him was mid-smile, ha. Apparently, my timing was off. Whoopsies.

Oh! Hyenas and wolves were two additional creatures that we saw today.



This zoo puts on informative “shows” every hour, and we caught the one about crocodilians, which was right up the kiddos’ alley. They got to see a baby Nile crocodile named parsnip (love), and then get up close and personal with a baby alligator, whose name Chica remembers but this tired Mama forgot. 













Their consensus on the feel of an alligator—squishy but hard. Ha.

Another highlight—until it became a bit frenzied!—was feeding the goats. Each kiddo had a bag of food and the darn goats were so greedy they even jumped and tore one of the bags open while I was holding it! Eventually, after Chicklet was hysterically swarmed by a starving mob, we decided it might be better to finish the feeding back where we began—behind the gate. ;)













Side note: lemme tell ya how stinky our shoes were after walking around this place today. Definitely tossed those bad boys in the wash!













I love this shot of my girl:







In all, it was the perfect adventure for today, and the kiddos gave it enough of a thumbs up that Chicklet has already asked if we could come back sometime. So it was a win for the random adventure column—woohoo!

And…as if all of that wasn’t enough to wear us all out, we grabbed a late lunch to eat at home and then jumped in the pool for some splashing.

So here’s hoping we ALL sleep well tonight!

It seems nearly impossible to believe it’s already JULY. But I’m not mad at it, one bit. We’re just going to keep trucking along with the fun while grandparents are here, and then perhaps, next week, we’ll take stock of our overall Summer to-do list and see where we stand—considering we’re nearly to the halfway point!

Happy Almost 4th of July Weekend, peeps!

Over and out.