20. Flat Stanley Goes On A Wildlife Safari!

On Monday, July 6th, we took Flat Stanley to Lake Tobias Wildlife Park, which is about an hour from where we live. Lake Tobias has zoo exhibits, a petting zoo, a reptile house and more. But its main feature is its wildlife safari tour:

"Safari tours are the main attraction at Lake Tobias Wildlife Park. Specially designed cruisers take you across 150 acres of rolling land where you see herds of wild and exotic animals from around the world.

Tour guides travel with you giving expert information on the various species and their habitats.

You will be surprised at how close you come to these animals."


Safari Tour animals include:

Aoudad Sheep
Buffalo
Elk
Emu
Fallow Deer
Llama
Red Deer
Rhea
Scottish Highland Cattle
Sika Deer
Texas Longhorn
Water Buffalo
Watusi
Whitetail Deer
Yak
Zedonk


The history of the park is as follows:

"Since 1965 Lake Tobias Wildlife Park has been fascinating patrons with its wild, exotic animals and adventure-seeking safari tours.

The late J.R. Tobias founded the park on the same property where he was born and raised. His unique ideas of touring the herds in their natural habitat and transforming school buses into "safari cruisers" have been duplicated by others today. The stream-fed lakes located throughout the park were also created by Mr. Tobias.

Today, with his wife and seven children in charge, the park continues to be a self-sustaining and family-owned business. Mr. Tobias's love and interest in animals has grown to become a favorite family attraction for over 100,000 park visitors each season."


It was our third time visiting the park and we always enjoy it. It was, of course, Stanley's first time there :)


Here are some pictures- and by the way, Stanley had another unfortunate accident, as you will see. You may recall from yesterday's entry that our Flat Stanley lost his left eye while we were visiting the Kutztown Folk Festival. We had to take several pictures of him with just one eye and re-glue his eye when we got home. Would you believe that the next day, at Lake Tobias, Stanley lost his RIGHT eye and we AGAIN had to take one-eyed pictures of Flat Stanley? Both of his eyes are currently repaired and doing well, in case anyone is wondering and/or concerned ;)

Alexa in front of our safari bus. For some reason she thought it would make a cute picture if she were pretending to pout and look sad.



Alexa and Flat Stanley on our safari bus reading to feed packages of special crackers to the animals:





On the safari








Flat Stanley got mistaken for a cracker and nearly got eaten!




Another safari bus in the distance




Our tour guide (who was quite amused to pose with Flat Stanley)




In the reptile house



They had a porcupine named Cuddles



and a sloth



Flat Stanley hangs out with a goat in the petting zoo




Oh! I almost forgot to add this! I also got a message board update from a friend who is hosting Flat Stanley in North Carolina. She wrote:

"Flat Stanley had a great 4th in NC. He played in the water at a sprayground, and listened to a band. He is wearing a life jacket since he is hoping to go out on a boat soon!"

Here are the pictures she sent:





I love the life jacket and the sunglasses! Cute!