Natural Bridge Wildlife Ranch- San Antonio, TX

We had some visitors this weekend...my(Rachel's) parents! I wasn't sure how it would be having overnight guests in our 35 foot Fleetwood Bounder and I've got to say, "It wasn't bad at all!" We had a great time.

We did lots of fun things in San Marcos, TX which included a boat ride at The Meadows Center for Water and the Environment and checked out some of the delicious restaurants in the area.

We also drove out to the Natural Bridge Wildlife Ranch in San Antonio, TX. I remember my parents taking me to Natural Bridge Caverns when I was little but we have never been to the ranch. We all love animals and taking pictures so figured it would be a good place to go.

The price to get in is pretty expensive. It's $22 per adult and you get one bag of food total for the car. Would be nice if they did a per vehicle fee.

After we paid that steep fee we headed to the Safari Entrance.

The ranch covers 450 acres of land and is home to over 500 animals. We opted to not pay for one of their "travel guides" which led us to the problem of having no idea what type of animals we were looking at. They did give us a little safari map though.

Our welcoming committee

A lot of the animals didn't approach the vehicle and just watched the cars go by.

This one looks like it is smiling

Some opted to graze on hay and grass instead of the pellets.

We were excited to see the zebras. Then we saw this sign and thought maybe we should just admire them from afar.

Then of course as soon as we get near them one rushes up and sticks his head in the window with his mouth wipe open. We quickly learned he wasn't going to bite he was just wanting someone to throw some food in there ASAP.

He needs to brush them nasty teefers

The zebra ended up being one of our favorites. After Chris rolled up the window it came to my window and opened its mouth waiting for some more food.

Gorgeous animals

Up next were the llamas. I love them they are so cute but they do smell terrible. The llamas just stopped by quickly and then moved on.

I decided to be brave and feed it

A llama visiting my Mom

I saw a couple ostriches and threw food to get them to come over.

One finally showed up and it was pretty crazy. We couldn't feed it fast enough so it decided to try and eat our car.

Chris enjoying the show

We all rolled up our windows and it wasn't too happy.

Look at that face

By the time we got to the emus, we decided we were done feeding the animals and wanted to walk around and check out some of the other attractions.

We headed to Lemur Island but there were no lemurs for some reason. We did get to see a couple monkeys. Then it was on to the Giraffe Barn.

the giraffe had found a stick it was enjoying chewing on

We had a great time visiting the wildlife ranch. I think it would be a great place to go with kids. They also have a petting zoo, sweet shop and restaurant on the property.

Thanks again for coming to visit Mom & Dad. We love you crazy kids!!

Have you been? If so what were some of your favorite animals? Let us know in the comments below.

The Meadows Center for Water and the Environment- San Marcos, TX

While staying in San Marcos, TX Chris and I decided to go to the Meadows Center for Water and the Environment to do their glass-bottom boat tour of Spring Lake.

We first heard about the Meadows Center from my parents who told us that back in the 60's - 80's it was a theme park called Aquarena Springs. They used to have what was called the "World's only submarine theatre" with glass-bottom boats, mermaids, a swimming pig and an underwater clown named Glurpo. It actually sounded really cool...except the underwater clown part. There was a picture of him in the gift shop and it was creepy.

One of the old buildings that was part of Aquarena Springs.   

Our tour guide was one of the students from Texas State University. He did a great job and was very knowledgeable of the area.

While looking through the glass we saw the springs bubbling up and lots of fish including a large spotted gar swimming below.

the springs and some fish

We also saw some scuba divers. The water is very clear and is 72 degrees year round which makes it a great environment for scuba diving.

Scuba divers

Once we finished our boat ride we decided to check out the Wetlands Boardwalk.

Entrance to the Wetlands

It was a self guided trail that had some posts with information on plants and animal life in the area.

I enjoyed doing some bird watching.

Some black vultures fighting over something in the water

a majestic great egret

Cormorant swimming in the clear blue lake

Western Kingbird

Great Blue Heron

There were also a ton of sunbathing turtles. According to their website "Spring Lake has the densest population of turtles in the United States".

I love how they sunbathe with their feet all stretched out

After that we went to check out the free aquarium.  My favorite thing was the Texas blind salamander which is native to San Marcos and actually an endangered species. The salamanders live in dark water filled caves and they adapted as they had no need for their sight.

We actually went back the next day to check out the Spring Lake Natural Area. It  is a 251 acre park with lots of trails for hiking, biking and birding.

Since it is winter we didn't really see any wildlife on the trail but it was still a nice hike.

We got to do all that for under $20. I would say it was well worth it.

Have you been? If so what was your favorite thing?

Davis Mountains State Park- Our trip to Fort Davis, TX (Part I)

In early October we stayed in Fort Davis, TX. Never heard of it? We hadn't either until we made plans to go to the McDonald Observatory(working on our post about it). While we were there we felt like we found a hidden gem, the Davis Mountains State Park.

When we first arrived at the park we went to the Visitor Center to pay the small $6 fee and get a trail map. We were planning on doing a trail right by the visitor center but this big tarantula and some of his friends were coming from there...yeah no thanks. So, we ended up doing the scenic drive.

Once we started on Skyline Drive we quickly realized the park is filled with tarantulas.  They were all over the street. We actually had to swerve to avoid hitting them during our drive. I had never seen anything like it.

Really couldn't believe these mountain views were in Texas

I mean from two people living in Texas most of our lives we were pretty surprised we had never heard anything about the Davis Mountains. They were stunning.

We could actually see our  RV Park from the overlook (its in the middle o the pic)

There were a lot of roadrunners there. I felt like Wile E Coyote trying to get a picture of one of them. They really are fast. I finally got a somewhat close picture after following this guy around. Luckily I didn't fall off a cliff or anything. Nice try roadrunner!

We actually left for a while and had dinner and then decided to come back to watch the sunset. We were greeted by some majestic deer.

Then we made our way to one of the overlooks to watch the sunset. Not too bad.

 

We thoroughly enjoyed our visit and would love to go back and hike some of the trails.

Have you been? If so what did you think? Let us know in the comments below.