Wild Animal Safari

On Sunday, we went to the Wild Animal Safari in Pilot Mountain, GA, with Aunt Kelly and Uncle Gabe.  It was an incredible experience!  Kelly and Gabe gave Max a gift certificate to the Safari for his 2nd birthday;  it was a fun, fun, fun afternoon that was long overdue.  Max had an absolute blast (as did we all!), and he really enjoyed the interaction with the animals.  We had beautiful weather and great company, and our lunch in the downtown area of Pine Mountain was delicous and memorable.  Here are some of the amazing pictures we captured.

Max chose to eat a snack of Animal Cookies because he was at the Wild Animal Safari!  So clever of him, I think :-)

Here is a picture of what the overall experience is like.  You can rent vans to drive through the three mile range.  The animals come right up to the windows (which are outfitted with horizontal steel bars) and seek these pellets of food that we bought before heading out.

Max feeding a deer :-)

Aunt Kelly and Max feeding some of the animals

This is #5 (as evidenced by his ear tag).  He was HILARIOUS!!!  Talk about an animal with personality...  Each time we moved on, #5 tracked us down.  He was the most persistent and cutest thing!

The giraffes were by far my favorite part of the experience.  They are so majestic.  I have never been so close to one before, and they are just amazing animals.  I can't believe how beautiful their skin is, and they have doe-shaped eyes with long eyelashes.  So sweet!!!

Here is a close-up of one of the giraffes, who was leaning over his own bar and through the bars on the windows of our car.  I just love these animals!!

Lance loved this guy b/c he had learned how to open his mouth wide and wait for someone to toss the food pellet into it.  (read: no slobber involved!)

These animals had some hysterical-looking tongues!  They were huge and rather gross, and they loved to stick them out as part of their plea for food.  Everytime one of them would stick his/her tongue out, we would crack up laughing.  I took lots of funny tongue pics--one more follows...

The zebras were my second favorite part of the excursion.  Again, I have never seen one so up close and personal.  Their stripes are so perfect that they actually look fake!  Here is one of the zebras sticking his mouth into our car for some food.

And here is my little zebra!

Another crazy tongue pic--what even are these animals?

Aunt Kelly and Max chillin' in the van

Max flying a helicopter outside of the cabin

Dale and Linda gave Max a camera for his birthday, and he had fun taking pictures of the animals!

The second part of the Wild Animal Safari is more of a petting zoo/regular zoo set up.  Here is Max getting a boost from Uncle Gabe so he can see better into this animal's cage.

A beautiful tiger

The whole gang :-)

Aunt Kelly and Uncle Gabe went to Mexico on a cruise and brought Max this blue sombrero for his birthday :-)

Here we all are at this cute little cafe in downtown Pine Mountain.  It was an eclectic little tea shop that serves their food on mismatched china--totally my kind of place!  We had a scrumptious brunch there.