A Weekend Adventure: Central/East Texas (Day 3)

Will and I woke up bright and early on the Monday morning of our adventure, bundled up because it was cold, and set out to the pavilion for coffee and hot cinnamon tea. We read and talked and sipped while we waited for Gene and Henry to wake up. This was the beautiful view we had of the wildlife park.  

After another hearty breakfast, we set out for another drive through the safari park. We are glad we opted to drive through again because we saw so many different animals this time around.

Ostrich

Common Wildebeest

Roan Antelope

Fallow Deer

Aoudad

Hartmann's Mountain Zebra

These were a highlight of the drive.  Their lips flapped like crazy and they just wanted us to toss food into their mouths.

Giraffe

The giraffe was another highlight. He briefly stopped at our car before moving to the car behind us, so Gene circled around and we opened the roof, and there he was, eager for munchies.

We thoroughly enjoyed our time at Fossil Rim Wildlife Center and would gladly go back for another visit.  

Our next adventure of the day was the Polar Express, so we had a 2 1/2 hour drive from Glen Rose to Palestine.  We stopped for lunch in Waxahachie and had to check out the beautiful courthouse on the square. 

We also ran into the huge Russell Stover store in Corsicana for fudge.

We arrived with plenty of time to relax before Henry donned his Christmas pajamas and we headed out for our annual Polar Express ride. 

We have been doing the Polar Express for so many years and it is still fun and magical.

All aboard!

Henry is absolutely delighted by the train ride to the North Pole.

 Hot cocoa

And Santa handed out the bells, just like in the story.

This is a very busy time for our family, but we all needed to get away for a few days to rest, relax and explore.  The holiday season is so full of activities, but also so much fun with kids, and we are looking forward to enjoying this season in the coming weeks.  

A Weekend Adventure: Central Texas (Day 2)

We stayed at the Fossil Rim cabins near Glen Rose for two nights. The cabins are very basic -- just two twin beds with a narrow walkway between, leading to a small bathroom. We didn't need anything more!  Gene and Henry, who like to sleep in, bunked in together, while Will and I, both early risers, shared a cabin.  Will and I were up before dawn, enjoying coffee and hot cocoa in the dining pavilion and watching the sun rise.  After Gene and Henry joined us for a hearty breakfast, we were off on our behind-the-scenes tour.  

As often is the case with our Polar Express adventures, a cold front came through overnight, dropping the temperature down to about 35 degrees for our outside adventure in an open-air truck. Our tour was supposed to be 2 1/2-3 hours, but we had a very slow, repetitive tour guide who informed us her tours were 4 hours long. In the end, because it was so cold, we just did the behind-the-scenes tour with the group and visited the rest of the wildlife center in our own car (with heat and seat warmers!).  

The behind-the-scenes tour took us to the Jim Jackson Intensive Management Area, where we saw Mexican gray wolves, red wolves, and a black-footed cat, as well as the cheetahs and black rhinos. It was interesting and we were glad to see some of the animals not on the regular tour.

But, the cold drove us into our toasty car for the rest of the drive for the safari park. Many more animal photos are coming up, so scroll on down if animals aren't your thing!

Blackbuck 

Roan Antelope

Scimitar-Horned Oryx

Emu

Greater Sandhill Crane

Fallow deer

Aoudad (just the horns!)

We have discovered that drive-through safari parks are a tremendous amount of fun. We all love feeding the animals and watching them trot up to the car.  Fossil Rim Wildlife Center does a lot of good work, conducting research and helping endangered and threatened species. 

After our driving tour, we headed back to the town of Glen Rose for lunch. We had eaten at Hammond's BBQ the night before and the boys loved it so much that they asked to go back, so we did.  The food was delicious!  With full bellies, we headed to nearby Dinosaur Valley State Park.  

When we arrived, we were met with a sign telling us the dinosaur tracks were not visible, but we were there, so we decided to go for a short hike anyway. The park rangers told us that we could see the tracks if we got about knee-deep in the water. Henry was all for that and started rolling up his pant legs, but fortunately, we were able to see some tracks without getting in the water. If you look in the photo below, you can see the three-toed track of a theropod (carnivorous dinosaur).  The deep impression at the right is a sauropod track (made by a large herbivorous dinosaur). There are hundreds of tracks at the park, and I can only imagine how amazing it would be see when they weren't all covered with water.  Nevertheless, it was pretty incredible to walk where dinosaurs walked millions of years ago.  

Dinosaur Valley State Park

After a full day of adventuring, we spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing, napping, reading, playing games, and enjoying delivered pizza in the pavilion.