Animals in the road again!

There we were, driving in the West Midlands, car packed with the girls. (Devin stayed home to play games, so we took cousin Sam and the three girls had a blast.) Terry was driving along when suddenly we were surrounded by a pack of North American Wolves.

Wolves?

Yes. They were a bit on the thin side, but beautiful, calm, and somewhat disinterested in us.

A bit further down the road and we had to stop because there was cattle in the road. Yep. Big. Fat. Brown. Cows. African Ankole Cattle to be exact. We were patient as this weighty bull took his time strolling down the pavement. Here's a photo of some of them running to the trough. I guess they were really hungry.


Shortly after that, we had some giraffe bending low to poke its head into our car. I stuck out my hand to give it a snack, and ew! its long tongue wrapped around my hand, smothering it in a sticky mucous-full saliva. Fun!

So what were we doing? How could we see wolves, buffalo, giraffe, lions, tigers, rhinos, wallaby, waterbuck, and elephants? Of course! We were at the West Midland Safari Park.

Teagan wanted to touch many of the animals, but she was too timid and often missed the animals when they were around our car. The giraffes were huge. Here's a short video clip of me feeding the largest male.

We also fed llamas and some rather large gnus.

Tomorrow we're headed to Stratford--Shakespeare country. The kids are thrilled...as mud. "Why do I want to go to some Shakey thingy when we can go back to the pool?" Oh brother. They already talked me out of a trip to a manor and its garden, and we left them at home to see the Roman ruins just 5 miles from here.

The place was a small town along the road from Chester to London (the A5 now) that the Romans used. Too often we think that everything back then was uncivilized or so backward from our lives today, but the more I see about what they had, the more I appreciate human ingenuity.

So, are there any Baconists reading my blog? What's the state of their argument against Shakespeare? I haven't seen anything lately. Perhaps I'll find something tomorrow.