Last week I was on spring break and Steve and I headed to Kissimmee, Florida. We stayed at our timeshare there and had a wonderful time. It was our first vacation without Hazel. She is on spring break this week. Instead of heading to Disney or Universal, we decided to check out Wild Florida. I was interested in the Drive-Thru Safari with a Giraffe Feeding Platform, and Steve was interested in the airboats. I noticed they had an animal encounter experience of painting with a giraffe. I was in. We scheduled the drive-thru safari, painting with a giraffe and an hour airboat for Wednesday. It was amazing!! So, my craft for this week is painting with a giraffe.
We were brought up to the giraffe platform. We were introduced to Walter or Wally. He was my painting partner. They had a stick that clipped onto the fence on the platform that had a foam paintbrush on the end near me. They explained that Wally would grab the stick with his foot-long tongue and move it. Then one of the safari staff members would give him a treat. We continued this way.
My job was to hold the canvas and pick the colors. The staff member put blobs of my colors on the canvas so Wally could move the foam brush around through the blobs. I had to rotate the canvas so he would get through them all. It was fun.
After we finished our painting, we posed with it.
Here is a closeup of our painting. The safari staff look for giraffes in each painting. We found two. Someone also thought they looked like they were dueling. We decided it was Wally and Leroy. Leroy is the other giraffe at the park. Apparently, they keep them separated because they like to fight and buck heads, so dueling giraffes is a perfect painting!
After posing with our painting, Steve got to join us, and we were handed some of the treats to feed Wally. We also got to pet his head! It feels like a bristly brush.
This was my favorite part of the entire experience!! It was so fun. One of the staff members asked if we noticed Wally's smell. We did not. Apparently, some people say it is musky like a skunk.
I love the smile on Steve's face here. He really enjoyed this as well even if he didn't get to paint with Wally.
We got to feed Wally carrots, squash, apples and more fun treats! He loves carrots!! He also loved licking us and even tried to bite me recently. It was so fun!! We had done the drive-thru safari before our painting appointment and grabbed lunch at the Chomp House Grill. We still had time before our airboat reservation, so we checked out the Gator Park. Don't let the name fool you, there are many other animals besides gators in the walking zoo. There is an aviary where you can buy birdseed sticks to feed them. I had fun doing this with a few birds landing on me!!
We had a great time on the airboat as well. We saw gators and all sorts of birds--blue herons, bald eagles, hawks, Great White Egret and more! Our captain was knowledgeable and shared many stories. They advertise it as in the middle of nowhere Florida, the real Florida. We highly recommend it. There is something for everyone here and so much to do!! It was about an hour drive from Disney!
