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Wednesday, August 10, 2011

The Wilds

Life has gotten away from me.  It has been a wild and crazy ride the last few weeks, but that is not what I am talking about today.  Last week we went to a little gem of Ohio called The Wilds.  It is 10,000 acres of wild animals in as close to their natural habitats as possible allowed to roam free. 

So Dave got up on Thursday of his vacation week and once again didn't want to sit around on his day off, so he decided that we should drive 2.5 hours away to the middle of nowhere so we could drive around what amounts to a reclaimed strip mine.  I have been incredibly busy with my other life and the laundry is around my ears.  All I wanted to do was stay home and get some stuff done.  This was not to be and we set off on yet another adventure. 

First we called William and convinced him to come with us.  William wants to study animals in their natural habitat and has mentioned about 45+ times how much he loved going there and how he would like to go back.   We headed to get him and then had 3 hours to get to our destination.  Our GPS told us it would be 2 hours and 15 minutes so we headed out thinking that we would get something to eat on the way.  Again, to make a very long story short, (please just trust me on this) we got to our destination with about 10 minutes to spare. 

We chose to ride the open air bus to see the sites.  The other option was an air conditioned bus, but on the recommendation of the staff, we decided to eat the dust and sweat through our clothes to take the tour.  I am so glad we did.  We had a great tour guide/bus driver names Leeann.  It was her third summer working there and you could tell that she knew the animals, the history of the reserve and that she loved what she was doing.  Her enthusiasm was infectious.

We drove around the preserve and got to see all kinds of animals including, but not limited to, two different kinds of rhinos, camels, giraffes, all different kinds of deer, antelope, ostrich, , cheetah and zebras.  Every time I looked somewhere else there were different kinds of animals to see. 

I am not doing this justice, but I suggest that you go see it for yourself.  I am not getting anything for posting this, but I want to share the good things they are doing and right here in Ohio. 

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