Drive-Thru Zoo!

When I was a kid, we used to go to Lion Country Safari in Irvine, California. You would drive your car amongst all sorts of wildlife; lions, zebras, giraffes, etc. They would give each car a tape recorder device that would say things like 'We are now entering Africa...'.They had a petting zoo at Lion Country Safari where you could have your photo taken with Frazier, the Lion. He was rather old, had no teeth & his tongue hung several inches out of his closed mouth. I didn't care, I thought he was great! It turns out that despite his advanced age, Frazier was put in with the female lions after several young males were ignored. Turns out Frazier was quite the Casanova & he soon had all the girls pregnant. They even made a film about him titled, 'Frazier, the Sensuous Lion'. Another childhood memory involves Lion Couhtry Safari's hippo, Bubbles. She escaped the park under a fence & went to live in a local pond. She refused to get out. Finally she emerged & due to some sort of tranquilizer issue, she died. I took it very hard,since I had been closely following the story & even had a gold "Bubbles" necklace. Her autopsy showed that she was expecting a baby. Lion Country Safari went out of business in California many years ago. On our Easter visit to Texas, we found something very similar: Fossil Rim Wildlife Center. The added bonus here, is that you can feed the animals from your car! If you've never fed a giraffe before, I'd highly recommend it!