Surfergeeks

So, as pretty much ANYONE who knows me already knows, we took Alex to African Lion Safari this past weekend. As those same people can already tell you – it was a MOST awesome trip. Nikki, my Mom, and I packed Alex and enough food to feed us (as well as a good portion of the wildlife housed at Lion Safari) into Mom’s van and away we went. We got there just after ten and parked. We headed over to buy our tickets for the guided bus tour through the Safari grounds. We didn’t really want to take the van through plus the bus tour has the added benefit of someone telling us exactly what it is we’re looking at. So off we go to buy our tickets. The first available bus wasn’t until 11:30 (which sold out while we were in line, leave 11:45 the first available). We huddled and decided that we would get tix for the 1:45pm trip as we wanted to see the 12:30 Elephant Swim.  Tickets in hand, we strike off across the parking lot for the “park” section. In there they offered some animal displays, a boat ride, a train ride, restaurants, shows, a play area and a waterpark splash area. Nothing really starts happening until 11am so we looked at some of the birds in the cages. (see the photo gallery for some test shots of an entirely new method of wildlife photography that I was playing around with)  After looking at a few birds we headed back to the boat and climbed aboard. It was a short little boat ride, about 15 mins or so and we got to see some monkeys and such. After that we went to the toddler play area and tossed the kid in the ball play area they had. He wasn’t really too sure what the hell he was supposed to do with those so after he winged a couple balls at another kid we pulled him out and let him play on the play equipment.

The elephant swim was pretty cool. After the swim we decided that we would eat lunch. After eating some of the far too much food we packed the van back up and headed over to the bus pick-up area for the trip through the safari. It was quite a hot day so a lot of the bigger animals (lions, rhinos, etc.) we’re being pretty lazy and just basking about. Alex was sorta like a T-Rex – if they weren’t moving he didn’t really see them. But the Baboons…he absolutely LOVED the Baboons. He was pointing and laughing at their antics. He was pretty good through the whole bus ride but did act up a little as we were getting near the end. Fortunately, there was another little kid on the bus that made Alex look like a complete angel. After the tour we went back into the park to check out the elephant round-up. Alex had a good time at that and the show was a good combination of trained elephant tricks and humour. We then headed for the splash pad. For those of you with good memories (if not, scroll down) you’ll recall how much he loved the splash pad at the Forks of the Thames. Yeah, take that times ten – easily. He LOVED this water area. And, like the other weekend, screamed bloody murder when we decided it was time to go. After that we pretty much decided that we would head for home. Needless to say, Alex was quite tired out and didn’t make it home without falling asleep but woke up before we got home.

The pictures are up in the Gallery. Enjoy!