The kids and I got out of the house early and went to the Safari at Great Adventure. It was a drive through and the windows had to be kept up all the time. This is my way of saying that these photos of the animals were taken through my car window, which had a vicious glare that I tried to work around. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't. I guess my cloning tool will be working overtime when I finally sit down to scrap these pages. DOES ANYONE KNOW OF ANY TECHNIQUES/TUTORIALS TO GET RID OF GLARE FROM A WINDOW FROM A PHOTO?
We saw Emus, Ostriches, American Black Bears, Brown Bears, Baboons and some other kind of monkey with red butts :) (can't remember their names ;0) Lions, Tigers (which were all encased and behind chain link fences and a waste of time to take a picture)
buffaloes, gazelles, giraffes, elks, zebra, elephants, rhinos,
flamingos, kangaroos, billy goats, and many other birds.
Driving through the safari was an interesting experience. People are always in a hurry to get somewhere and today was no exception. While I pulled over to get a closer look at the Alpacas/Llamas (this was a 3-lane way) I had someone on my rear end that wouldn't go away and obviously wanted me to go faster. He figured I was taking too long and finally moved to the other lane and sped away.
Sheesh, I guess a little patience is hard to come by anymore in this fast track world. While at the driving range, I stopped at every spot that had an education tidbit about the animals we were seeing to give the kids a chance to see them up close, too.
I am thinking of doing an educational series of layouts with lots of information about the animal being featured. Kind of like a science project, yeah, that, a Science Project! :) (Ha! Like I need an excuse to scrap a page!)
Great Adventure is actually only 22 miles away from my house. It is a lovely and very relaxing drive. One gets to see acres and acres of grains, which reminds me of the
"America the Beautiful" song""O beautiful,
For spacious skies,
For Amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain
majestiesAbove the fruited plain!
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee,
And crown thy good
With Brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!"
Doesn't this song make you want to break out in song; really loud, at the top of your lungs loud? No? That's strange! It does to me and my kids! :)
All joviality set aside, once we were finished with the animals tour, we went to the "Exploration Station" for a closer look at some animals skulls, eggs, hooves, etc. As far as live exhibits, we a saw tarantula (not very big, but doesn't mean I wanted to touch it), a blue-tongued
skink (which I saw up close and personal at the Earth Day Fair a couple of weeks back...see picture if you need to refresh your memory), a Burmese Python (this specific specimen was an albino), a boa constrictor (that reminded
Kaylie of the Shel
Silverstein poem, "A Boa Constrictor, " which she knows by heart and acted out in school) and some
kinkajoos.
We then went over to the main theme park, where we caught a show at the Independence theater. They had trained, live seals and dolphins. Next we made our way over to the Jolly Roger which featured a giant skull and a train ride around the track. The kids also went on the
Taz Tornado (swings), Road Runner Railway (train), Seaport Barnstormer, Wiggles Big Red Planes, Pepe Le Pew Hearts
Aweight(cups), Yosemite Sam Seaplanes Flight Tour, Michigan J. Frog Fun Flotilla (boat rides).
At the Temple of the Orient, we saw the
Aldabra tortoises, again, before stopping by a kiosk for the traditional mango and cherry
icee purchases. We made our way to the Oasis, where the kids got soaked/drenched/wrinkled to their hearts' content. Next, we hit the
Tigerland Treehouse, the
Jungleland Express (train ride),
Raja's Rickshaws (peacocks), Monkey Around (swings) and ended up at Bugs Bunny National Park. There, the kids rode the Bugs Bunny Ranger Pilots planes and Porky Pig Camp Wagons. They loved the wagons so much that they rode it 2 times in a row. (there weren't many kids in line so they could do it). The last ride of the day was in Main Street, where the Enchanted Teacups are located.
Kaylie and Liam loved it. I spun them around so much that gravity was lifting them off of their seats. They had a great time!
We spent about 2 hours at the safari and the rest of the day (7 hours) at the theme park. We had a lot of fun, but are all beat!
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