Please DO Feed the Animals

A couple of weekends ago, Jay and I took Truett and Emma to Fossil Rim. For those of you who may not be familiar with it, it's this place where acres and acres of land are fenced in and 'wild' animals are allowed to roam free. It's like a drive thru zoo almost, and the animals walk right up to your car!

This was the car in front of us. If they weren't hanging out of their car to pet the animals, the animals were sticking their heads inside the car!

There are zebras, deer (and TONS of deer-like animals), ostriches, rhinos, cheetahs, giraffes, etc....

I have no idea what kind of animals these are below, but it was still pretty cool seeing them up close. It sort of felt like we were in a scene from the Lion King! :)

When you get there, you can take a guided tour or drive through in your own vehicle (which is what we did). It was great because Truett was able to get out of his seat, but was still contained in the truck.

Emma & I hung out in the back while Truett went up front with Jay.

He loved being able to sit up front with his Papa and spent a lot of the time looking out of the windows for the next group of animals.

Jay even let him 'drive' at one point, which is always a big hit with Truett.

It really was so cool because although I've seen zebras and giraffes at the zoo, I've never seen them so up close before.

Jay fed one of the zebras from his hand....VERY 'against the rules' where the zebras are concerned because we were told that the zebras are likely to bite you. Yeah....Jay almost pulled back a nub after his attempt at playing 'zookeeper' with the zebras!

The giraffes were a different story and were really the only animal that the folks at Fossil Rim actually encouraged you to feed. It was so funny watching this giraffe walk up to each car, take some food from them, chew and then walk to the next car. I imagined the giraffe thinking, "Yeah, yeah, yeah....I ate from your hand. Thanks for the food. Move it along. Next!" :)

When it was our turn, I think Truett was a little skeptical, but that giraffe walked up to the truck and all but stuck his head in the window. Truett held his little hand out and the giraffe ate the food right from it. Very cool!

At the half-way point, there is a little petting zoo for the kids and a gift shop. Emma had fallen asleep by this point, so she and I stayed in the car while Jay and Truett went to check things out.

When they got back to the truck, they had made some purchases at the gift shop. We each got a commemorative t-shirt and Jay had bought Truett some animal crackers. When Truett opened the box of animal crackers, he said, "Look at this puzzle!" Jay said, "That's not a puzzle, boy! That's animal crackers." I turned and looked and sure enough, it was a puzzle. I looked at the box and THIS is what Jay had purchase for Truett! hahahahahh!

The rest of the trip, Jay kept calling Truett "Brianna"! :)

We really had a great time and Truett seemed to enjoy the animals. His favorite book at Gramma's (Jay's mom) is The Three Billy Goats Gruff so he thought he was surrounded by billygoats the whole time! He loved it!