Road Trip to Africa...an African Safari that is.

Do you ever have those moments when you try to schedule a get together with some good friends but something always seems to keep coming up instead?

That is how it has been for us lately with our friends Nicholas and Valerie.

For weeks, maybe even months now, we would all make plans and set a date to get together. But as the scheduled date drew nearer, the timing just was not right. So the get together was canceled and rescheduled, only for it to happen all over again.

We found the solution to that dilemma though. It's called spontaneous plan making. So when life is too busy or unpredictable to schedule anything out in advance, spontaneity is the solution, I do believe. Or it so happened to be for us this time around.

Valerie contacted me on Saturday and within a few short minutes we had a road trip, get away planned for the very next day. It was the perfect break away for our two families....a chance to get out and feel some of life's stresses melt away into a fun filled afternoon.

The Stamm family

along with

The Rice family...

Nick, Valerie, and their daughter Ashalyn

All traveled a couple hours away to Port Clinton, Ohio to enjoy what was our first adventure through an African Safari.

It was so much fun!!

Allow me to take you on a multi-picture tour of our gratifying day.

On foot, we followed the walking paths to view some animals.

We saw the liveliest bunch of Apalacas, running and play fighting...


We saw a very stinky and ugly Worthog...

An exquisite peacock...

Some silly ducks...

And a Putty Tat.


Then we got back into our vehicle and entered the drive through safari.


From the rolled down window we were allowed to feed the animals from the bucket of food purchased at the gate and carrots.

I was amazed at how unfrightfully the animals came right up to the vehicle.


And ate out of our hands.



On the contrary perceptive belief of this picture, that is not Mike feeding Cayman's hand to the deer.

The deeper into the safari we traveled, the bigger the animals became.

We saw the Buffalo up ahead but thought, "Surely they don't come right up to the vehicle like the deer do."
Oh how wrong were we. As soon as the Buffalo spotted us, they trotted eagerly toward our vehicle in search of food. It did not take us long to button up all windows and doors tightly as we watched these large creators get closer and closer til they were right up on us.

This look on Cayman's face is priceless and pretty much speaks the scared but amusing feeling we all felt from being surrounded by animals that could swallow us.


Poor Nick...we forgot to warn him that the passenger window cracks open this much automatically and there's a trick to getting it to remain shut. What a shock that was for him when he rolled his window up and it began to roll back down all on its own, all the while a huge buffalo is trying to stick its head inside of the vehicle. (lol)

A Longhorn that forgot to have its morning V8.


The Giraffes are my favorite. I could watch those incomparable animals all day.



After the Safari tour we found a perfect dining area for our picnic lunch.


Cayman's first Dorito.



We threw bread down to the seagulls.

Daddy handed Cayman a slice of bread for her to toss. But she decided to keep it and eat it herself...until it was time for us to go and then Mike tossed the remainder of the bread to the birds.

Cayman watched, so sadly, as the birds ate her slice of bread.

Mike bought us ice cream on the trip home though and that made Cayman happy.
That smile just melts my heart.

Ashalyn was a perfect little girl all day. And look at that adorable face. Couldn't you just stare into her pretty eyes all day?

After dropping off the Rice family at their house, there was just one more stop to make.

The car wash...

To get rid of all that animal slobber.