OK, the title makes me chuckle to myself just a little. I guess in Central Texas they can call it that, but really - in my opinion it is not an "exotic" ranch. Whatever - to each their own. :-)
We bought our tickets at ITR, if you are military and you want to go I would suggest doing the same. The ticket prices at ITR are $2 less per ticket making it $8 for adults and $6.50 for kids. Once you get there at the gate you can buy generous brown paper bags of food to feed the animals for $1. We bought 4 bags, one for each young person that was in the car. This was perfect and I would suggest one per person. As we drove over the cattle guard we were surrounded by reindeer and zebras. They were all very gentle and came right up to our car poking their heads in looking for food. Look at the top left side of the picture, you can barely see Boy 3's head. He was beyond freaked out that a zebra was sticking his head in our car. (He was in Boy 1's lap just a few seconds before this picture was taken!)
We bought our tickets at ITR, if you are military and you want to go I would suggest doing the same. The ticket prices at ITR are $2 less per ticket making it $8 for adults and $6.50 for kids. Once you get there at the gate you can buy generous brown paper bags of food to feed the animals for $1. We bought 4 bags, one for each young person that was in the car. This was perfect and I would suggest one per person. As we drove over the cattle guard we were surrounded by reindeer and zebras. They were all very gentle and came right up to our car poking their heads in looking for food. Look at the top left side of the picture, you can barely see Boy 3's head. He was beyond freaked out that a zebra was sticking his head in our car. (He was in Boy 1's lap just a few seconds before this picture was taken!)
Hello little reindeer!
You lookin' at me?
It's not everyday that you see this in your rearview mirror!!
I'm laughing. Really. I know it looks like I'm freaking out, but that is a laugh. These guys were funny and soft and kind of cuddly. I'm considering opening a llama farm. ;o)
The ponies were so cute, but as they came up to us, they were kind of mean. OK, not all of them were but there was one psycho pony that bit Boy 2 (not bad) and then chased our car for at least a mile and he would not let the other animals close to us!! I guess I would be a little ticked off too if I had hair like that and lived in Central Texas – it was about 103 degrees outside...
Oh no, the birds are coming....
Wow...white emu!
OK, the ostriches FREAK ME OUT!! They all have crazy looks in their eyes, and they are just mean. This one stood in front of my car not allowing me to move while he eyeballing me......then he started pecking at the hood of my car!!!
He pecked while his buddy was hanging out trying to get Boy one to roll his window down!
Check out his crazy eyes....
I told you I want some food....
We finally shoved our way past crazy bird land only to find this waiting around the next turn......
Love it...another Cav family!
Now, they had warned us at the entrance to either roll our windows all the way up, or all the way down. The lady told us if we didn't the camel might break our window. We rolled one middle aisle window down; all people were in the 1st or 3rd row. Things started off fine...
I mean check out that cute little face...
He even kissed our car...
Boy 1 even fed him from his hand, but then Mike (that's his name) got a little greedy and decided to see what else we had in the car....
OH, and he didn't stop there. We thought for a minute he was going to take our cooler, but then he spotted something else...a shoe. Crud, we thought the shoe was a goner, but no, he reached over it and grabbed a bag of food we had bought to feed to the animals. Check it out....look in his mouth, he took the ENTIRE bag and then he left. I'm not sure my children will ever be the same. You should have heard all the screaming coming from my car!! You would have thought I had a car full of cheerleaders!
.
We were beyond excited to leave the camel and his freaky birds friends behind us.....
We were thrilled to happen back upon our sweet zebra friends.
Ahh life is good again....that is what I thought - until I realized Boy 3 was no where to be seen...when I said his name and ask where he was he was behind the 3rd row and said "You know guys, I'm still a little freaked out back here'. You gotta love that kid! ;o)
All in all the drive though was really fun, we laughed so hard throughout the entire thing! We spent about an hour and fifteen minutes driving through the safari and we went pretty slowly.
The little 'petting zoo' was not as good...maybe it was because it was so hot or maybe it was because it was kind of run down...I'm not sure the animals were in the best health, but again I am not a vet. I would suggest skipping the petting zoo though.
All in all the drive though was really fun, we laughed so hard throughout the entire thing! We spent about an hour and fifteen minutes driving through the safari and we went pretty slowly.
The little 'petting zoo' was not as good...maybe it was because it was so hot or maybe it was because it was kind of run down...I'm not sure the animals were in the best health, but again I am not a vet. I would suggest skipping the petting zoo though.
Boy 1 and I got a good laugh from this sign.
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