Take A Walk On The Wild Side

Hey y'all, 

You know how sometimes, people write about how southern people are dim-witted or slow or possibly crazy and at the very least, supremely eccentric? This is not going to be a post that helps change their minds. 

There's this great episode of Designing Women, in fact, where Julia says, "I'm saying this is the South. And we're proud of our crazy people.We don't hide them up in the attic.We bring 'em right down to the living room and show 'em off." Some decades ago, some well-meaning person not only let their Uncle Ross of Gentry, Arkansas out of the attic, they gave him a starter loan to build a drive-through wild animal park. 

The Wild Wilderness Drive-Through Safari in Gentry, Arkansas is just...bonkers. 

You drive your car about 3mph through five miles of animal habitats, and though there are signs everywhere that read DO NOT FEED THE ANIMALS, I suspect some guests of the Safari don't follow that policy; most of the animals came right up to the car and knocked on the window, waiting to be handed some Cheetos. 

My family is evenly divided between Alabama and Georgia, so I really have no business making fun of Arkansas (Mississippi, maybe) but the signs at the safari actually made me laugh out loud, from the misspelled "leopard"...

...to the lizard that isn't "collared," but "collard."

There was a petting zoo at the end, where Laney wanted to feed a goat one little morsel of food at the time, before learning that the goat would be happier just to eat the whole darn bag.

Even though it was near 100 degrees most days we were there, still Laney got up every morning and dressed herself with pants underneath her dress. You can take the girl out of Montana...

At the end of the day, I'm glad we went to the Safari. The kids loved it and it made me laugh at the sheer impossibility of a hippo hanging out in a pond in Gentry, Arkansas, next to a grizzly bear habitat where a bear was napping and a horse was grazing underneath a sign that read, "I AM A LAWNMOWER. I AM NOT FOOD."

Mostly, I hope I encounter Tennessee Williams in heaven one day, so I can convince him to write Night Of The Cheeto-Loving Emu.

Love,

Mom