Born to be Wild... Literally...

I don't know about y'all, but Spring Break at the Clark house is a big deal... PAR-TAY! No school, no schedules... a much needed and much anticipated reprieve. To officially kick off Spring Break, the kids and I took a trip to the Rocky Mountain Wild Animal Sanctuary. A place where large carnivores that have been rescued from being abused, abandoned, or illegally kept, are taken to live out their lives. Hayden had read about this place in a magazine and then saw a show about it on Animal Planet. So when we realized how close it is to us, we decided to put it on the list of places we wanted to visit. Today was the day.

It was really interesting to read the stories of all of the rescued animals. Some had been kept as pets, some rescued from illegal entertainment venues. Hayden has such a tender heart, especially when it comes to animals. He got tears in his eyes as he was reading about some of the awful situations that the animals came from. And then tears again as we talked about how happy they must be now to live in a nicer place, with lots of room to roam.

Sophie was hilarious! She got so excited every time she saw a new animal. She would climb up on the fence and growl and roar as loud as she could. It was so funny and cute, but also freaked me out a bit because the walkway was directly above all of the tiger enclosures. She insisted on climbing and leaning on all the fences and I was sure she was going to fall into one of the cages and get eaten. Not that it could have easily happened, but the thought of it was making me nervous anyway.
We brought our lunch along and enjoyed a fun picnic on the deck by the lion enclosure overlook. This guy was entertaining us rolling around on the ground and roaring really loud, Sophie kept squealing and clapping every time he did it.
All in all, it was a fun adventure and the kids had a grrrrrr-eat time!