Fossil Rim

Today, we took Troy to the fossil rim animal preserve. It’s a drive-through park where the animals will just walk up to the car while you feed them. We caravanned with CC, JC, and Declan. Troy loved seeing the animals from his books and animal TV shows coming to life before his eyes.

The park was mostly fallow deer and oryx. But there were also emu, wildebeest, zebras, and giraffes at various places as well. My wife and I fed the giraffe, her big black tongue winding around our fingers to grab the food. Troy was too chicken to try it. I guess a twelve-foot giraffe can be a little intimidating to a three-foot tall baby. But as intimidating as the giraffe was, he showed no fear with the oryx with horns as tall as he was. Nor did Troy flinch when a zebra walked right up to the window and licked his outstretched hand. He merely stuck it out there again.

Sadly, Declan didn’t seem to care much for the animals, but they also didn’t have the windows down for him. The only time that Troy was unhappy was when we tried to pull him back inside the car. He loved hanging out of the window and seeing animals within touching distance, sometimes dangerously close. All in all, it was a nice change of pace. It was nice to get out of the house and give Troy something different to see and experience. Next time, we’ll need to do a zoo, so he can see lions, and tigers, and bears...oh my! And of course the elephants.