Yesterday after church we decided to take the kids to the Lazy 5 Ranch north of Charlotte. It’s a petting zoo/wagon ride kind of place and we knew the kids would have a fun afternoon.
We arrived late in the afternoon – around 3:45 p.m. and signed up for the 4:30 p.m. wagon ride around the ranch. The ranch is cool in that most of the animals are just free range and just roam the entire property. Only a handful have enclosures – the rhino, the camels, the giraffes, various birds, and the lemurs. The rest of the animals – various breeds of pigs, buffalo, deer, ostriches, sheep, bulls, bison, ducks, donkeys, zebras, llamas – all just kind of walked around. The wagon ride was a blast and CootieBoy definitely enjoyed himself. The horse-drawn wagon held about 40 people and we were in the front near the horses and the guide. We all got a couple buckets of feed that we could use to feed the animals, and for over 45 minutes CootieBoy thrilled to feed all kinds of animals. His favorite was probably the giraffe, who came right up to CootieBoy and ate pellets from D’s hand. And he also had fun dropping pellets onto the American Water Buffalo’s tongue. CootieGirl, on the other hand, wanted nothing to do with feeding the animals but did enjoy having them so close – close enough to touch in most cases. Our only regret was not taking a camera with us for the day – we could have gotten some great shots of CootieBoy feeding the animals.
