A few weeks ago, we took the girls to the Wild Animal Park in Winston, Oregon.  It was a 3hr ride down there, but so totally worth it.  Last time we were there, DJ was 18 months old, and I was pregnant with Indigo.  We stopped there on our way to San Diego.  An incentive for getting DJ up and ready to go early on the trip – she gets going with us without a fight -and she would see animals.  She LOVED it – even at the young age, so love the ostrich coming to catch bugs near our car.  The giraffe wandered by – and the elephants, at the time, were taken on a daily walk through the drive through spaces – with just keeper to keep them from going after a car.  It was pretty awesome back then.  You had to wait for them to open gates for you so you could drive through the bear enclosure  and the lion enclosure – and the guy at the gate would yell down “don’t stop -or they will play with your car – it’s their sport when they are bored. ”

Over ten years later, certain things changed – no more gates opening and closing.  Once you were in the area, you were in.  There were fewer African elephants than before – and they no longer were taken on walks while cars were around.  But it was still great as we were able to feed the emus and deer – petting them as they ate pellets out of our hands.  Fun stuff.

But the bears – oh the bears – were in fine form.  I am sure we drove the people behind us nutty as G slowly drove through so I could take photos of them.

They were so much fun to shoot.  Of the 350 photos I shot that day, I think 100 were of the bears.  Though, the giraffe was fun too.