We recently visited Lion Country Safari,http://www.lioncountrysafari.com/, on the East Coast of Florida. This is a drive through safari with lions, zebras, rhinos and ostriches. It's like the bastard child of McDonald's and Busch Gardens with a hint of redneck.
So, We loaded up the man-van and departed at 5:30 on a Saturday morning. O yeah, both kids were wide awake. We met our good friends the Wilson's, http://wilsontableforthree.blogspot.com/, who have 2 daughters Riley Bell and Reese.
I was a little skeptical after the long drive, however, I was pleasantly surprised. The first turn into the park, there it was, two giant tortoises humping- that's right-- live hardshell, zoo brown-chicken-brown-cow. But alas, they were embarrassed by us human peeping toms and the female crawled away--typical. So unfortunately... tortoise interruptus.
Savannah was excited about the animals for about 35 seconds and then proceeded to ask repeatedly, "where's Riley Bell, when can we ride the Ferris wheel, and watch out for the animal poop daddy!"
They did have ostriches which are like 8 foot legs with a boatload of attitude and a sharp beak. The brochure says an ostrich egg is equal to 24 chicken eggs.
Wow, that's like a WNBA player that poops omelets.
Ok, I have to comment on the impalas/antelope/etc. These are basically deer looking creatures with or without antlers or stripes. These things are only cool when being eaten and/or chased by lions. No one really cares about these things, it's not like you drove 4 hours to go to "Impala Country Safari". No, we came to see cool things like turtle sex and ostrich omelets.
Impalas must be dirt cheap on craigslist in Africa because every zoo has like a hundred of them. I think there should be like 3 or 4 just so tourists can say, "Hey I hope that thing is fast because the lions looks hungry."
So we did see the lions, unfortunately, they were behind a fence and did not come up to the car. If I was a lion at that zoo, first off I would ask for a trade to Busch Gardens. My whole existence would involve a few simple things: eating, mating, napping and trying to attack tourists in Kia's.
