Headed down to Columbus and stayed at the KOA Buckeye Lake campground. We wanted to stop in the Columbus area to visit with our niece, Ashton, who is Kat’s brother Bret’s daughter. Ashton works at the Columbus Zoo.
That evening we obtained tickets to visit “The Wilds”, which is a Safari park which is 1,000’s of acres of re-claimed strip mining used as a wildlife preserve. There are many things to do there, we opted for the “Evening at the Outpost Tour”, that allowed us to get up and personal with a number of species.
On the way to the petting area we saw animals in a natural environment:
First up, the rhinoceros:
We actually got to pet them! Their skins feels like very hard leather. We had a nice snack out on the savanna before the sunset:
The second (and final) stop was the giraffe barn where they house the giraffes during bad weather.
We climbed up to the second level so that we could be eye-to-eye with these magnificent animals. We even got to feed them:
Talk about cool! The Wilds is a place like no other that I have visited and I highly recommend that you plan a trip here.
The next day we went to the Columbus Zoo. I’m not big on zoos, but I gotta tell you that this zoo is fantastic! The animals are treated very well and the lay out is very conducive to viewing them is a realistic setting. Here are some that we saw:
The best part was watching the jaguars (((OK, Kat just read this and told me that I had a false truth here – they were cheetahs, not jaguars))) chase a mechanical rabbit around their pen. They are very, very fast! (((Even faster that Jaguars!)))
I took a break on the bench with Jack and Suzy Hanna!
You may have seen Jack on TV Shows, like Jimmy Fallon. Ashton has traveled to shows with Jack – so cool!
After the zoo, we were able to take Ashton out for dinner and here’s a picture of the three of us in the parking lot:
Great day, great zoo and great to see Ashton!
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