Safari Fun or The Day My Child Almost Had Her Leg Eaten By A Zebra

Becca, Sten and I took the girls to the Natural Bridge Animal Safari.  I had great memories of visiting with my Aunt Cherie and cousins Brandi, Robyn and Chance when I was a little girl, and it did not disappoint.  It was one of my favorite child-friendly outings we have experienced since moving to San Antonio two years ago! 

You drive through the park and the animals come right up to the car.  Longhorns, zebra, wildebeast, goats, a variety of horned African animals.  You can feed them food pellets out the windows but the park warns you against touching the animals.    

There were also plenty of signs warning folks not to touch the Zebras: "CAUTION: Zebras may bite."   

What you can't see in this next video is that I was holding Sash on my lap in the front seat of the car and I was turned around trying to film Lela in the back seat.   All of a sudden, there was a zebra poking his head into the car - teeth first!  I swear, in that instant I had a horrible vision of this domesticated zebra taking off Sasha's leg in a single bite.  I'm holding the camera in my right hand as I'm reaching Sasha in my left arm as far over to the other side of the car as possible - practically shoving her onto Sten's face.  The poor kid didn't even know what was going on.  But hey, at least she still has two legs.  

The ostriches (ostrichi?) were CRAZY.  We drove into a flock of 4 or 5 ostrich and they were pretty aggressive.  Fortunately, we got the windows up in time.  

This guy really liked my car.  I think he saw his reflection in the window and he pecked and pecked for several minutes.  

At one point, we were all so enthralled with the ostrich pecking the left, driver's side of my car that we didn't pay attention to the open windows on the right side.  Until Lela started screaming and leaping backwards over the seat into the third row.  We all turned to see what Lela was doing, and only then did we see THIS GUY poking his head into Lela's window.

That is an Emu.  No wonder she started shrieking! 

After all the animal fun, we headed indoors for some popsicles.  

And then onto the petting zoo where the girls got mauled by aggressive miniature goats.  

It really was great fun and we all had a blast.  We need to make this an annual trip.  

PS - Congrats to Becca, Sten and Ella who welcomed Baby Lucas yesterday (6-17-13)!