this one time, we went on a safari

In our car.

There's a park within about 30 km of us that has all kinds of animals. You can drive through in your car and/or go inside to see more animals. Of course, 30 km in Bangkok can take 2-3 hours to drive, but during Songkran, the roads were empty. We took advantage of Rocky's time off and headed over to Safari World--in under 40 minutes. We would have been quicker if we could read Thai road signs--it definitely would have saved some illegal U-turns.

 Outside the US it's a different world, as far as zoos go. 

 I'm torn between loving being so close to the animals--exposing E to so many animals close up and wanting all the zoos to be shut down (this one was for a while) for animal rights. I do know, I never want to be a zoo animal in Thailand--almost solely because it's so crazy hot.

If I was a zoo animal, I would want to live in the zoo close to where we lived in Switzerland. The zoo gives people bags of popcorn to feed to the animals. Also, the monkeys escape on a regular basis and terrorize the visitors. Not to mention, I think you get some kind of Swiss citizenship for being an animal in Switzerland which probably comes with several bars of solid gold and a giant Toblerone.

 The lions and tigers are kept behind special gates your drive through, kind of Jurassic Park-esque. But I would not want to be there in a freak storm with the power out. Speaking of Jurassic Park, Rocky showed parts of it to Eliot yesterday. She loved it. I made him turn it off when the T Rex started attacking the car and she was furious. I keep catching her glaring at me today, then she says, "Me want to watch that dinosaur movie. The bad parts."

 This lion never closed his mouth. I'm almost positive it was forced open for tourists to get better pictures. Welcome to Thailand.

Ever since we failed to catch a giraffe in the jungle (don't ask) Elie's been dying to see one, and since we couldn't drive close enough to get a good look, we decided to head into the park where you can buy potatoes and bananas to feed them.

 It was the highlight of her young life.

 I think it might even top peeing her pants in Minnetonka Cave, "Last summer me peed in cave. It so funny!"

 Vi braved the heat, which was bordering on unbearable. Although, she also didn't like it when Eliot set our thermos full of ice water on her lap and it drained out all over her.

 At the elephant show we learned elephants can do all kinds of extraordinary things.

 Like paint.

 Play soccer

 And basketball.

 And tightrope walk, just to name a few.

We hit up a crazy koi pond on the way up and Rocky took a picture of me, just to prove to our kids that despite most photo evidence--I was present in their childhood.

 At least physically.