Tennessee Safari Park

Each month, we like to take Ava on a "field trip" to at least one new place.  It doesn't have to be out of town--just a place we have never been to before.  For instance, last month we ventured over to The Botanic Gardens for My Big Backyard and had a blast.  This month, I planned for us and my brother-in-law, Brian, sister-in-law, Donna, and our nieces, Leah and Mallory, to go to the Tennessee Safari Park.  It is about an hours drive away in Alamo, TN so we got up early, went to pick them up, and loaded everyone up into our SUV.  Here are the girls as we were leaving--notice Ava and Leah are all excited and Mallory won't look at the camera (she is not a morning person--that is a Daniel gene).  

The drive up there is not bad at all.  We had a nice time chatting and aside from one short pit stop at McDonald's, we made good time.  We were immediately greeted at the entrance by a couple of peacocks.  There were peacocks all over the place!

The safari park has two parts--the first part you drive through and the second you get out and walk around to see the animals.  We paid our admission and also bought 4 bowls of feed for the animals.  We took a minute to let the girls climb over to sit on an adults lap and then passed out the feed.  You are provided with a piece of paper with pictures of each of the animals you will see while driving and the name of the animal.   However, you hate to stop to look down at the paper because you are afraid you will miss something.  I can't find that paper now so I will probably incorrectly identify some of these animals.  The first one we came upon was this reindeer (or at least Kevin said it was a reindeer).  He was just hanging out by the side of the road but then he decided he would come over and get something to eat.

Next we had a visit from these guys.

Then, came the emus.  They were hilarious.  They saw our truck coming and ran over to us.  It was a little unnerving because they are pretty big and have these crazy red eyes.  I took a lot of pictures of them because they are so funny looking with their frizzy hair.  After awhile, we started thinking they were pretty cute though.  Here they come!

So, what y'all got to eat?

Leah was a little freaked out by the emus because they eat with great abandon.  Their heads were jerking back and forth and food was flying.  You can see in the picture she is leaning way back away from the window.

I swear this one stopped eating long enough to pose for me.

We fed a nice horse.  He was a little more calm than the emus.

We saw some razorbacks, oryx, and water buffalo.

Also zebras, donkeys, deer, and cows.

This little thing looked very sleepy and was curled up all cozily and cute.

Kevin and Ava are having a great time driving us along.  Please realize we were moving at a crawl--otherwise I would never let my child do this.

The ostrich found us.  

And the llamas...

 This one was adorable.  He kept following our truck and sticking his head in to look for food.

Then it was time to get out and explore the safari park on foot.  The girls found some cute places to pose for pictures.

We saw a big ostrich egg and some baby ostriches.

A camel, Gila monster, and crocodile.

Here is our group staring with fascination at the monkeys.  Kevin chose this moment to share one of his favorite quotes from Talledega Nights:  "I'm gonna come at you like a spider monkey!"~Texas Ranger

There was a REALLY cute baby goat running around.  We fed it some of our leftover feed and the girls also gave him a bottle.

Look!  They had baby goats FOR SALE!  I wanted to get one.  I used the argument that Kevin wouldn't have to mow the grass nearly as often.  He did not go for it and I came home goatless. :(

We went over to what was basically just a menagerie.  You can see the llama and the lamb running over as they realized we had food.

This one was upset that I didn't have any food and stuck his tongue out at me.

We are about to run out of food!

Meet Gerry--the sweetest, most beautiful giraffe...

Standing in line to get carrots to feed Gerry

Check out this long, black tongue.  He reminds me of Gene Simmons.  Gerry took the food from all of us so gingerly.

We had an absolute blast at the safari park.  Admission is $12 for adults and $8 for children.  They are open from early spring-late fall.  Check out their website at tennesseesafaripark.com.

After we left and drove back to Memphis, we stopped at Cracker Barrel to get something to eat.  We ran into Mr. Mike, the balloon man who made balloon animals at both Mallory and Ava's birthday parties this past year.  He was there eating lunch in between jobs but he just so happened to have some balloons with him.  He is so sweet and stopped eating to make balloon flowers for each of the girls.  

The girls got a treat but so did I--Kevin bought me some apple butter!  I absolutely LOVE this stuff.  I had it for the first time at the Apple Barn in Sevierville when I was teenager and I have been telling Kevin about it for years.  So now I get to try Cracker Barrel's version.

We all had a great time today!   I have 5 "field trips" planned for us in the next two months and I hope they are as successful as this one!