We Missed You, Texas

We spent a week in Texas in the middle of October. We arrived in Austin on Scot's birthday, and flew out of San Antonio on Riley's sealing day. Kent and Sherri are probably the first friends we made in Austin that still live there, and they were always generous hosts. Four years later and three more kids between us, and we still felt right at home at their place. We celebrated Scot's birthday with Chuy's, a Texas football game, cupcakes, and a dip in their hot tub. The only thing Scot would have changed about it was the outcome of the game.

Sunday was another trip down memory lane when we joined our old congregation for church. There were a lot of new faces, but many more that were familiar. It was great to say hi to people that were such a big part of our lives, and we had fun catching up with old friends. We spent the night at Scott and Jeana's, where our kids had a great time with theirs, Jeana and I visited as if no time had passed, and our husbands played so much ping-pong they were both sore the next day.

Next we headed down to San Antonio. We stopped in Lockhart for lunch, and ate a lot of our favorite Texas barbecue at Smitty's. It was just as delicious as we had remembered.

Before the trip we had talked about swinging by the Natural Bridge Wildlife Ranch. Scot thought the kids would really like it, but I was lukewarm about the idea. After lunch I was even less enthusiastic. We would be seeing plenty of animals later in the trip, it was naptime, we'd all eaten a lot for lunch, and I was eager to just get to our hotel in San Antonio and get the boys down for naps. Thankfully Scot convinced me that we should stop.

Based on their personalities and previous interest in animals, we'd made some assumptions about how well each of the kids would enjoy the experience. Riley has always approached animals first and asked questions later, so we were confident that she would have no reservations about the animals or her proximity to them. We didn't think that Asher would be too excited, as he is not an animal lover. He has enjoyed aquariums since he was very young, and that is probably the ideal situation for Asher and animals. Watching predictable and rather slow-moving animals from a distance, with a wall of thick glass between them. Tyson was a little bit of a wild card. Of all our kids, he is the most interested in our dog, but he is a little timid when in comes to interacting with animals that he is less familiar with. But in general, he's kind of full steam ahead about new people and new situations.

We were given a paper bag of food when we entered the park. Next to the gift shop there was a small petting zoo. Actually, that's probably not the best name for it, since it was just a large pen with a tribe of pygmy goats. There, we got a preview of what was ahead of us with the bigger animals.

After feeding the goats we got back in the car for the main attraction of the Wildlife Ranch. You drive your car through the property, where animals from different regions around the world will walk right up to your car to be fed. We unbuckled the kids from their car seats and let them hang out of the windows when we were stopped.

Asher looks a little hesitant in this photo, but it wasn't long before he warmed up to the idea. Soon he was leaning out of the car, calling to the animals in a sing-song voice: "Animals, over hear! I have some food for you!"

There were a few stretches with no animals, where Scot would drive the car really slowly and let the kids hang out the windows like dogs.

Those were Tyson's favorite moments of the afternoon.

Riley would feed the animals right out of her hand, and Asher would hold the food out to them and then drop it on the ground as soon as they got close. Tyson, however, wanted nothing to do with the animals. He stayed seated firmly in his car seat whenever there were animals near the car. This is his impression of the animal we nicknamed Redneck Llama.

Of course, some of the animals were more aggressive social than others. Scot didn't have to try too hard to coax this female kudu into the car. 

And the llamas were extremely friendly.

This curious-looking nilgai was charming. But Asher was not happy when she nosed her way in without an invitation.

As we approached the area where the zebras were, we saw a couple of signs warning that the zebras might bite. So we didn't hang around when one approached our open window and made this face at us:

We finished the loop and still had food in our bags, so we decided to drive through another time. This time we drove right past the herds of small deer-like animals at the beginning. They were plentiful, but not that entertaining. We also tried to steer clear of the aggressive ostriches and satanic-looking emus.

We approached the teeth-baring zebra with caution, and soon felt silly for rushing away from him the last time. Turns out he was just doing a party trick!

We had a fantastic time at the Wildlife Ranch, and would definitely recommend it to anyone visiting or living in the area. October seemed to be the perfect time to go. We've read that the animals are pretty lethargic in the summer heat .(Anyone who has been in Texas in August won't be surprised by that.) And since there weren't very many other cars, we felt comfortable going as fast as slow as we wanted.