Zebras approached cars at the Natural Bridge Wildlife Ranch

I’ve never been to Texas before. I had been warned that it is a country on to itself. When I visited my brother — a new San Antonio resident — over Christmas and New Years, I found that to be percisely true. The two hour drive from San Antonio to Austin showed us exactly the sort of wierdness I hoped from Texas.

Safari Park

Our first stop was the Natural Bridge Wildlife Ranch. We had to be the only adults there unaccompanied by a child under the age of ten. The parking lot was full of minivans with Oklahoma license plats.  But no matter! People for all ages love to feed pellets to overwieght wild animals out of their car windows.

We drove the track through the safair park twice. The first time, we followed the directions that the park gave us. We threw our feed pellets on the ground when the animals approached us. We did not stick our hands out of the car. Or allow any animal heads in.

Other safari park vistors feed the ... um... reindeer

We viewed reindeer, buffalo, llamas, zebras and ostrich from a safe distance, and a herd of over eager mountain goats mobbed our car.

Boring! The next drive, we got brave.

Wild animals invaded our car. We barely escaped.

We stuck our heads out of the window. Let the zebras and misc. animals eat from our hands. This ostrich nearly pecked Greg’s eyes out as I tried to get a close-up shot of it.  Ahhh. Nature’s so exhilerating.