Chestatee Wildlife Preserve and Zoo

Here's Mom feeding a bison.  That's a great way to start the day, right?  This was hilarious, because rather than feed out of your hand, this big guy would open his mouth and stick out his tongue like he was Michael Jordan about to put in a slam dunk.  And that's what we did with the food we brought along to the Chestatee Wildlife Preserve and Zoo.

Roughly a half-hour away from us is a small wildlife preserve and zoo, one we actually hadn't been to before. But why not go visit, right?  That's what we did, and as you can see above, there were buffaloes and also zebras there.  In fact, the zebras were plenty.

 

The zoo itself is a much smaller scale than others, so the bar was pretty low in my mind upon arrival.  But we had a pretty good time there, walking from area to area.  I think it was the option of carrying along food to feed the horses, donkeys, zebras, longhorns, buffaloes, emus, and other creatures.  We had a few bags, but then we got a few other bags from leaving guests who didn't use up their bags, and in the end, we wound up feeding these animal friends quite a bit!

Maddie brought along her camera and took some pictures too.  As you can see above, the weather was all clear.  One one hand, we didn't have rain to contend with.  On the other hand, it was pretty hot by the end of the visit.  Mom was ready to leave by the end, ready to get something to drink and get into the car where there was air conditioning.  But let's take a look at some of the photos from our small getaway, and see some commentary along the way too.

Maddie took this photo.  I didn't hear any doves crying, but they were cooing quite a bit.

This stop sign is enforced by that small officer in a hat.  

It was feeding time for the tortoises, and they were moving pretty quick to get lunch!

Maddie walks in front of a building that has sloths inside.

The buildings had murals painted on them which looked pretty nice.

Maddie and her new monkey friend.  

I just want to put this out there:  emus are terrifying.

We were friendly though, feeding these guys too, very carefully though!

We really liked this friend.

A longhorn goes for a walk.

Feeding the ravenous bison!  

There goes that tongue again.  Nom-nom-nom-nom!

I love buffalos.  I just wanted to put that out there too.

This buffalo tongue is crazy!  He'd just sit there with his mouth open, and Mom would put food on his tongue, or I would just throw the food into his mouth.

Maddie was not a fan of all the licking though!  More on that in a bit...

Such an impressive span of distance with these horns.  How does he go through doorways?

All the while, the buffalo keeps wanting more food.

Mom was having a great time this morning at the reserve.

The horses were nice too, including this new friend.

Look who is saying hi to Mom!

Ah!  Mega-camels!  This guy was wanting some food too.  Just watch out for the slobber!

I remember riding one of these in Israel.  I think these are used occasionally in December for church Nativity presentations.

This is a zedonk, a cross between a donkey and a zebra.  I'm not sure if we've ever seen a zedonk before, but we had plenty of food for this friend too.

I like this picture of the zedonk.  It's a fun word too!

The girls take a break under the trees, surrounded by zebras.

Mom and Nana pose in the shade.

These zebras were aggressive, really anxious to get the food we had.  Beautiful creatures, but pretty pushy!

We were all feeding the zebras today, but this part was hilarious...

Maddie didn't like the slobber on her hand, mixed with mud!  Gross!

This picture says quite a lot.  If Maddie is ever looking at you like this... she's not happy!

But she did enjoy it.  It was nice to see all the animals.

I think I'll remember the zebras the most.  They had quite a few of them!

Periodically, you'd come across cages with monkeys or bears inside them.  Or in this case, turkeys!

Here are the doves again.  Apparently they bite!

This baby donkey was super cute!

There were plenty of horses to say hello to!

Mom shares her meal with a few more new friends.

They had some nice bamboo areas there too, shady and cooler.

The rest of our day was a bit average.  Of course we had taekwondo tonight, and that was fun.  We all watched an old movie tonight, "Wargames," just because the phrase has been repeated so often lately, "Do you want to play a game?"  The movie is a good one though, a classic I remember watching over and over again because we had it on glorious VHS.  I knew so many lines in this movie tonight before they were even spoken!

Anyway, we read tonight and prayed too.  We'll try to do something else outdoors tomorrow, but we'll see how that goes with the weather and other appointments.  Until then... goodnight!