Our Weekend Trip to Africa

This weekend we visited a local (relatively unheard of) attraction called Harmony Park Safari, so not really a weekend trip to Africa...but it was an awesome safari!  I found the place mentioned on a website a few weeks ago, although Harmony Park Safari does not have their own website.  When I began describing the park to John telling him you could drive through and see various animals like zebra, bison, goats, camel, monkeys, kangaroo, crocodiles, alligators, and deer just to name a few from your own car, John was skeptical to say the least.  We decided to make the 45-50 minute drive on Saturday, and it was well worth it!  We're actually hoping to go back again soon!

Harmony Safari Park was AWESOME!  You drove through the park in your own car and could even feed all the animals.  Almost all of the animals could walk up to your car, and they did!!  The only animals that were in separate areas and could not walk to your vehicle were the crocodiles, alligators, snakes, kangaroo, and monkeys. 

Our visit was unreal.  Immediately after being let through the gate and into the park, all of the animals congregated around our car.  The main rule was that you could only roll your windows half-way down, which at first we rolled our eyes to, after about 5 seconds of being inside the gate and having deer, sheep, ducks, horses, goats, and emus all putting their heads inside our car we actually had to roll them half way up (and all the way up at times!).  The emus were my least favorite because they would stick their heads inside the car no matter what and wouldn't back off.  They were also Dawson's least favorite, as one particularly hungry emu had his head inches from Dawson upon entering the park before we realized the reason for the window rule!  It scared Dawson slightly, and he cried for a second.  The rest of the time though, he was laughing and clapping! 

We let him ride on my lap in the front seat because the speed limit was 2mph throughout the park.  At times we couldn't even go 2mph because so many animals were around our car we were afraid to hit them.  Dawson had a ball.  He was hilarious when the huge bison came over and licked our window, Dawson said "moooo."  After driving through the park and feeding all the animals we had so many nose prints all over our car that we had to wash it.  If you're in or near Huntsville this is definitely a place you have to visit!  It was unreal to have zebra, bison, etc touching our car (and us if we hadn't been a little afraid).  We had an amazing time, and Dawson with his love of animals was in heaven!  I will let the pictures show you just how close the animals were to us.  I will say that some of the pictures are not as good as I had hoped because 1) a lot of them were taken through the car window to keep the animals from getting in our car while taking a picture and, 2) the animals were SO close that we had a hard time getting photos of their entire bodies (especially the bison).

Enjoy the pictures below...

Getting our car window kissed by a steer.

One of the emu that would not leave our car alone!

One of the monkeys in the cage.

It was one of the few animals in a cage.

This was on the walking portion, so we could

get really close since we were not in our car.

They even had a dinosaur!  Dawson was in heaven

when he saw the "nino" since they are one of his favorite

things right now!

Dawson on riding the "nino"!

Dawson kissing what he calls one of

his gnomes.  This one is actually a Christmas

elf that he saw and thought was a gnome.

This was on the way home from the safari, but

the pictures got a little out of order on blogger for some

reason.  I just thought it was cute because I looked

back, and he was kissing the gnome!

Dawson and I with one of the turtles.

We had to watch Dawson closely in this

area because he kept trying to touch them.

Dawson looking at the turtles during our

safari.

The bison eating some food I threw

to it right outside of our car!

Another attempt at getting a photo capturing how

enormous the bison was.

The bison put his nose on my window

and kept it there for a while so this was the

best shot I could get of his face, and it's really only

from his eyes up.

Again, the bison.

Alligator.

Alpaca

Cow "MOOOO"

What is this animal??  I have no idea what

this animal is.  It was hilarious though! 

He came up and stood by John's window

just like this for a few minutes.

Check out the teeth on this alpaca!

(You can see the Zebra next to her)

We were SO tempted to touch the zebra, but we

chickend out.  The zebra seemed very friendly though.

It stood by our car for a while, stuck its' head inside, and

ate the food we gave it.

Zebra and alpaca eating outisde my window.

Dawson wanted to touch the zebra too.

I rolled the window up so he could touch

it through the glass.

He LOVED all the animals!

Some of the animals (mostly deer here) out

John's window.  This was at a point when there were

so many animals on the path in front of us that

we had to sit still for a while!

The camel, as I mentioned, was one of the few behind

a fence that could not get to us.  He could almost

reach inside our car, though.

John feeding the white horse...

right before he KICKED OUR CAR!!

Luckily he only kicked our wheel so

there was no damage. (You have to sign

a waier for your car when you drive in the

park).

The zebra from a little further away.

Dawson pointing to a deer.

Dawson spent most of his time pointing to animals

or clapping!

Dawson on my lap which was also a big treat

for him to get to sit on my lap in the car.  You can

see the camel's neck in the background.

Camel

John and a deer.

The only bad thing that happened

on the safari (other than our car getting

kicked) was that someone knocked our feed

over in the backseat floorboard immediately after

getting the whole bucket and driving through the

park entrance.  Oops!  We just scooped food out

of the backseat the whole time!  I cleaned it up

later that day.  John insisted on taking a picture of this

mess I made.  haha!

John with a deer.

Baaa..

Looking for food.

Dawson looking at the deer!