a few weeks ago on a drive to phoenix i a saw a sign for a wildlife park called out of africa. i mentioned it to luke and we thought it would be a fun way for me to spend a day with the babies while luke was working. we told mateo we'd be going soon when the weather warmed up a little, and every day after he asked "when are we going to see the animals?!?". and finally last week, we went. it was a fun day, and also a funny day.
it had all of mateo's favorites: a bus ride through a safari with giraffes and camels and zebras where you can feed the animals, a pool where the tigers go swimming, lots of room to run. he's never really been to a zoo since being old enough to remember so i was excited to see how he did. the first activity was a pet-the-animals show. when an iguana was brought around to pet, i was sure he would be too afraid to touch it but instead he touched it super fast with one finger- a direct and hard poke-in-the-eye to the iguana! i felt so bad and also was so happy the iguana didn't react. he of course didn't realize that he had touched it in any way differently than the others.
then we took the safari bus ride. ruby and mateo were both given carrots to feed the giraffes, and both of them couldn't handle not being able to eat the carrots themselves. mateo liked the zebras but when he saw the giraffe poking it's head in our window he tossed his carrot outside, out of fear, i think? the bus driver had just warned everyone not to toss them out the window because they aren't safe for some of the animals, so i had to let him know and he had to wait until the larger animals were away and he jumped out to save the carrot. yikes.
then we went to the "tiger splash!" show, where the tigers jump in the pool. i'd told mateo about this before and we'd watched the youtube video of it to build his excitement. this was the thing he had been talking about for days before coming. we sat in the front row and do you know what? all he cared about was the fruit roll up he was eating (he's never had one before), and then the chips (another rare item), that came in the park's lunchtime kids meal. when he finally finished he looked around and saw all the kids with ice cream and somehow that led into a giant meltdown and i feared for the people swimming with the tigers since mateo was screaming so i had to lead him out of the arena screaming behind me!
later we saw this giant, sad rhinoceros named "boom boom" and that really impressed him more than the lions and tigers and grizzly bears. boom boom walked over to his water (slowly) and sat his head down in it. a few hours later we came back to see him and he was still in the same position. the above photo was our attempt at a photo together with boom boom, but mateo is going through a shy stage and won't look at people so this is the result. :)
ruby slept the entire day. i was happy to see her napping in the fresh air. she was happy and got lots of complements on her chubby cheeks and big eyes.
the last part of the day is the "predator feed" show, where the staff tosses giant hunks of meat, sometimes entire turkeys(!), over the fences of the big animals. the funny part is you have to keep up with the meat truck, so it is kind of like a mob of people chasing the staff in a truck carrying huge bits of meat. funny, right? the great thing is that the animal enclosures were so big that we hadn't seen many of them yet, but during this feeding time they all came up close and we could all get a good look.
all in all, a nice day. ruby slept, mateo ate, or thought about eating all day long, and i really enjoyed the animals. they fell asleep on the journey home and i grabbed some frozen yogurt and watched the sunset in sedona. later that night i was sorting laundry and mateo asked me to throw him bits of it which he would then catch in his mouth and pace around with, so i realized he was at least paying attention to the men throwing meat over the fence to the animals. i haven't been able to do laundry without him pretending that socks are pieces of meat since. :)
