Wagon Trails a Safari Adventure
Our latest Mystery Trip was to a park located just outside of Youngstown, Ohio. Wagon Trails Animal Park is a unique animal adventure. Unlike traditional zoos, animals roam free in an enclosure measured in acres rather than feet. A safari vehicle takes you through this 60 acre park where you can feed over 300 animals from 6 continents.
The Safari Park has a petting zoo for visitors to see while they wait for the next tour to depart.
The newest addition to the petting zoo is this adorable little 15 day old camel. His coat was incredibly soft, warm, and fuzzy.
Attack of the Giant Bunnies The zoo had a large area with quite a few bunny rabbits; but not just any bunnies, these were some very LARGE rabbits. These furry critters were nearly as large as Gabby!
	The albino peacock never spread his feathers; but this guy put on a show for us. When my brothers and I were young, we had a great-aunt with a farm, where she kept quite a few peacocks. We used to always have at least a few of those beautiful feathers lying around the house.
The 'Roos must have been worried about being in the sun too long and stayed out of the heat in their hutch.
DO and Carolynn were excited as we loaded up onto the tour bus. Neither has expected such an unusual Mystery Trip (that's WHY it's called a "Mystery Trip" ); but they were looking forward to the adventure.
Jim and I taking pictures of each other
Camels aren't new to us (remember our friend Herman?), so it wasn't any surprise that we spent some time feeding this guy.
It took a few seconds after the bus pulled away, but the cattle know a good thing when they see it, and began to follow us down the path, hoping to get some more feed.
Some kids on the tour feeding one of the ostriches
	For a while it seemed like "Christmas in July" as our bus was surrounded by a herd of reindeer after we crossed a small bridge over one end of the lake (which was filled with Koi).
The reindeer antlers are still growing at this time of year, so they are covered in a soft fuzz.
Gratuitous Butt Shot this month brought to you by Santa's reindeer. (Blixen is such a vixen. )
After meeting the reindeer at the edge of the lake, we next drove into the wooded area where most of the younger animals were staying out of the sun and the heat. Little fawns bleated and baby pot-bellied pigs squealed are as tossed out feed to these animals.
MouseOver CloseUp	Oink! Oink! Wilbur!
One of the grownup reindeer was still hungry enough to follow us around.
The water buffalo lumbered out of the shade for some munchies.
MouseOver to see my camera	MouseOver to see me taking pictures
	The zebra were very pretty; but I stayed away from them just in case they might cause an allergic reaction in me.
The water buffalo didn't want us to go either. Everybody was pretty hungry this early in the day, so they followed us to our next stop.	MouseOver
The safari park has quite a collection of animals, including water buffalo, ostriches, llamas, emus, rheas, antelope, reindeer, buffalo, bison, and long-horned cattle.
	The American buffalo may be gone from the Plains; but there are still quite a few of the animals that can be seen on farms and in parks around Ohio. These must be defective though. I didn't see any wings on them at all!
This was a very unique experience being so close to these animals. As the animals were getting food dropped into their mouths, nuzzling for pellets under the seats, or eating straight out of our feed buckets, we were able to reach out and touch their antlers and fur. It was a really cool "hands-on" experience. DO's bucket got chomped by a really hungry reindeer earlier in the ride. He was determined to get ALL the food, and DO was determined to share it throughout the park. Although the reindeer got a good mouthful, DO won the battle and kept most of the feed while the bucket sustained only minimal damage.
MouseOver to see DO damaged bucket	Jim and DO having a good time
Although I did touch quite a few of the animals, I avoided not only the zebras, but also this miniature horses.
	Our driver took a detour and drove us across this lake. Where that sign is (at the top of the water) is a piece of roadway just under the shallow water.
Looking out the window and taking a picture of where we were before crossing the water.
You can see the pack of animals that we left behind on the other side of the lake.
	These guys were still hungry enough to follow us across the water.
Enjoying our Mystery Trip
Carolynn, Jim and DO also had a good time at the park
MouseOver the picture above to see what it looks like as you feed the animals. Below are pictures of the cattle eating the pellets on the floor by licking underneath the seats. You had to be careful, as many of them were able to get their heads quite far under the seat. You never knew when a big, ugly wet tongue might slurp across your ankles!
It was amazing as we fed this batch of cattle. Those huge horns were constantly knocking against the sides of the bus and the backs of our seats. I accidentally dumped the last pellet dust in my feed bucket right down the nose of one of these guys. He tried shaking his head, and his horns banged into the bus quite a bit, until he staggered backwards and sneezed.
This batch of animals didn't even try to follow us as we drove away. Being as close as they were to the front gate, they got to eat from buckets as tours entered the park AND as they left.
The park has quite a bit of acreage and the layout was quite nice. We'll have to return another year to see how nice it looks when the grass has grown in, and the rest of their improvements have been made.
The weather had just the right amount of sun and shade to make our adventure quite pleasant as we were driven around and viewed all the animals. I would definitely recommend a trip to Wagon Trails if you're ever in the area. Visit the Wagon Trails website to find out more, and to see a video of what a tour through the park is like.