Back to our roots!

Tomorrow is Memorial Day here in the USA, which is also often considered to be the "unofficial" start of Summer! I am going to exercise my rights as a US resident, and post an abbreviated blog in lieu of the holiday! But I will leave you with a 50+ photo slideshow of what we did today!

This morning, we all piled into Liesel's car just before 9am to head out to the African Safari Park in Port Clinton, OH, just an hour away! It was a beautiful drive and we were one of the first people to arrive at the Park. The Park should be renamed to the African and American Safari Park, since we saw Giraffe, Zebra, Kudu, Gemsbok, Duiker, and Springbok, but the majority of the animals were from North and South America, such as Reindeer, Bison, Alpacas and Llamas!
The park has 2 parts to it, a drive-through reserve filled with "tame" herbivores, and then a walk around section that has a host of other animals, pony and camel rides, pig races, and some educational shows! We started with the drive-through part, and were handed a container of feed at the gate to feed the collection of reindeer, alpacas, llamas, bison and giraffe! So driving cautiously through the park, Liesel bravely held the container of feed out the window to feed the creatures, when all of a sudden the car was surrounds by these hungry herbivores, each one trying to get his/her share of the feed. Reindeer were kicking one another, and one decided he preferred the rubber beading around the car door than the feed in the container! Liesel was soon overwhelmed by this herd of huge hungry heads by her window, and in their aggression, caused her to drop the container. It was the perfect distraction, and we managed to maneuver our way out of the unrest! The next section of the reserve contained mainly younger deer, who were not able to get their heads into any windows! Finally, we could wind down our windows in the 80 degree (27C) weather, and Josh started relaxing, without having huge nostrils breathing against his window! Enjoy the show!