Wild Animal Safari

We decided instead of birthday gifts this year for Cooper, as he has more then he can use, that we would go on a trip. Because he loves animals we decided to go to the Wild Animal Safari, in Winston, Oregon. It was about a 3 1/2 hour drive. Because of the distance we choose to drive down the day before. We stayed at a really nice Indian Casino called Seven Feathers, in a town, that was about 25 minutes south of the animal park. We choose it because of the large rooms, reasonable price and the indoor pool. We arrived at the hotel at about 5pm, on a Monday. We quickly changed and headed to the pool. We all got in the pool, including Delaney. She loved the water. Anyone who knows Cooper knows that he loves water so he had a blast. It wasn't exactly warm, but it wasn't freezing either. After awhile I got out with Delaney and we headed to the jacuzzi which was only 98 degrees. I sat in the water and held her so only her legs were in the water. It was much warmer and she was a happy girl. Cooper and Dad stayed in the pool for quite some time; even after Delaney and I went back to our room. We were origionally going to eat at the casino buffet, but since the Lakers were playing we ate dinner in our room.

The next morning we got up fairly early. After packing up and showering we headed to the animal park. We got there just after it opened. This was great timing as it was not crowed. The concept is really fun as you stay in your car and drive the trail through the park. We purchase a CD that describes the animals we were seeing as we drove the different sections. The CD also talked about the creator of the animal park and why it was started. The animals were so close that if we reached out the window we could have touched them. This was amazing to experiance.

We got to drive through 2 times. After our first trip through we stopped at the park village and saw more animals and shopped at the gift store. After our second drive through we were ready to make the trip home. The kids did great on the long drive considering.

When I was young my parents took us kids to the same type of animal park in California. To this day I still remember the experience. I hope Cooper will too! We certainly will make the trip again.