Visiting a zoo other than the one I live in …

 

So, this weekend I decided The Noodle needed time in the Great Outdoors that didn’t include urinating on it.

With that in mind, Sunday afternoon we loaded up the car and took the long and strenuous (Okay, it’s more like 15 minutes, but there’s a lot of traffic and my manperson took back roads and I was convinced we were lost because I had no clue where we were) journey to the Yellow River Game Ranch, home of Georgia’s favorite groundhog, General Lee, who every Feb. 2 predicts our winter weather forecast for the state.

No, really.

Anyway, we got there, and after paying a completely reasonable fee (What, this is cheap? There’s a metro-Atlanta attraction that’s cheap? This is lovely, wonderful stuff. Hooray!) we entered the game ranch.

It was filled with all sorts of animalia. The Noodle was in heaven.

There were chickens wandering about.

 

 

I tried to get it to stand still and place my purse beside it, to no avail. So sad.

There were deer that were tame, which I thought was awesome. (Interesting side note; My baby sister is terrified of deer. Can’t look at them. Which is ironic, because last fall she was driving along a country road at 1 a.m. (those college kids, with their energy and late nights and parties and everything. I do declare. Kids these days) and collided with a deer doing about 60 m.p.h. She was fine, but there was — seriously, I saw the receipt — $10,000 worth of damage done to the front end of her car. The deer went over the hood, the windshield and the top of the car. And the most upsetting thing to Tiny Juan? Not the damage to the car, the stress of the accident, or being stranded alone, on a highway and having to walk in the night to a church where there was phone service, but “the deer looked me right in the eyes. They are so creepy looking.” Well, she sure showed it, huh? Heh.) Anyway, The Noodle tried to feed the deer but he is just not adept at holding food. He’d just drop it on the ground and be like, “Eat! Eat I say!”

 

Crazy demon animal? Yes, according to my sister. According to The Noodle? Just another lover of graham crackers.

With the exception of him running away from me once twice constantly, we had a great time. The goats were my favorite. (Little baby goat, I adore you. I want to take you home and pet you and keep you and ohmygosh you’re pooping and walking and the poo … it’s still coming … it’s like tiny BBs of poo … that’s just unsightly. Who on Earth would ever want a pet goat? Not me!)

Oh, little poo machine. The goat, not my child.

The best part? Trying to get The Noodle to LOOK AT ME when I am taking his picture. I probably took 30 pictures, and he would glance at me, say “Cheese” in his most bored, Mommy-I’m-over-this-when-can-I-move-out voice. And then, I’d get a picture of his ear, or his eyes have closed like a tiny drunken troll child. Finally, I hissed to my manperson, “Turn his head toward me!” and this was the result:

 

Even tilted toward me, he can't look at me. And isn't my manperson's celery cigarette lovely? I think so.

All in all, it was a great time. Additionally, I got what I think is the prettiest photo of a mule in, like, you know, evar.

 

The latest ad for Crest Whitestrips. Because that grill is lookin' good.

Animals rock. (Especially the regular, poo in a dark corner away from me types. Unlike goats. I mean, sheesh.)