Monday, October 11, 2010

An invitation to a Safari...

My husband and I have just returned from a trip to Fossil Rim in Glen Rose, TX. If you haven't been there, I highly recommend it. I will be posting about this vacation for many postings so I can share with you what a fabulous place it is. Wild and educational. We stayed at the Foothills Safari Camp, a small collection of tents on the edge of a waterhole which is pretty active in the early morning and evening.

This is the tent we stayed in - it was called Cheetah. There are only six or seven of these tents available, so if you want to stay in one, book early. There are also rooms at the lodge which are bigger and fancier (and more expensive).
This is the inside front of the tent. Behind the curtains is a fully equipped private bath with a shower. I admit, it's tiny, but we spent very little time in the tent.
This is the view from the porch on our tent. The water you see is the waterhole and it's bigger than it looks. Lots of the animals came down to drink in the morning and evening. We also saw many bluebirds and scissor tail flycatchers which seem to frequent the area. At night, you could hear the mating calls of the European Red Deer which sounded a lot like one of those wooden frogs with the stick - when you rub the stick over it's back, you get the same sound. Actually, they were a little obnoxious at times.


This is the pavilion which is open 24/7. It also has wireless which I didn't know about until the last morning we were there (lol). You can have a private dinner here with a chef and waitress. There are lots of tables and snacks which are on the honor system. You just write down what you've taken (wine, soda, candy bars, etc) and they will bill you when you check out. A glass of wine and some down time on the deck are all the relaxing you need here. We took this trip with two other couples so we used the pavilion to play UNO at night after dinner. I won....when the first person hit 500, I was still in the 130s. The Rim is 1700 acres - you can drive through or you can take some of the photo tours. We took 3 phototours and I'll share some of those pictures with you.


Giraffes are beggars. Who knew? And who knew they have the world's softest lips. Like velvet. And they are gentle. Not like the ostriches which are much greedier and will follow you for miles just for a snack.

The Emu are not as bad as the ostriches but can be little pests, too. In fact, if you are a dedicated photographer, feeding the animals isn't a smart idea. Once you throw out the first handful, all the animals rush your car and they will be too close to photograph. You are not allowed out of your car unless you take the behind the scenes photo tour which will get you close to the cheetahs, wolves and the black rhinos.

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